Finding N+1 queries before your users do

An N+1 query happens when code loads a list with one query, then runs an additional query for every item in it. With ten rows in development it is invisible. With ten thousand in production it dominates the request.

The reliable way to catch them is to look at real traffic. Request traces show the same query shape repeating dozens of times inside a single request, which is the signature of the problem.

The fix is usually small: eager-load the relation, batch the lookup, or add the missing join. The hard part is knowing where to look, which is why tracing production beats guessing.

MetrixWire automates exactly this: it detects the pattern, shows how much of the latency it accounts for, and explains the fix in plain language.