Documenso Performance Tuning

Overview

Optimize Documenso integrations for speed and efficiency. Key strategies: reduce API round-trips with templates, cache document metadata, batch operations with concurrency control, and use async processing for bulk signing workflows.

Prerequisites

• Working Documenso integration
• Redis or in-memory cache (recommended)
• Completed documenso-sdk-patterns setup

Instructions

Step 1: Reduce API Calls with Templates

The biggest performance win: templates reduce a multi-step document creation (create + upload + add recipients + add fields + send = 5+ calls) to just 2 calls (create from template + send).

// WITHOUT templates: 5+ API calls per document
async function createDocumentManual(signer: { email: string; name: string }) {
  const doc = await client.documents.createV0({ title: "Contract" });              // 1
  await client.documents.setFileV0(doc.documentId, { file: pdfBlob });             // 2
  const recip = await client.documentsRecipients.createV0(doc.documentId, {        // 3
    email: signer.email, name: signer.name, role: "SIGNER",
  });
  await client.documentsFields.createV0(doc.documentId, {                          // 4
    recipientId: recip.recipientId, type: "SIGNATURE",
    pageNumber: 1, pageX: 10, pageY: 80, pageWidth: 30, pageHeight: 5,
  });
  await client.documents.sendV0(doc.documentId);                                   // 5
}

// WITH templates: 2 API calls per document
async function createDocumentFromTemplate(templateId: number, signer: { email: string; name: string }) {
  const res = await fetch(                                                          // 1
    `${BASE}/templates/${templateId}/create-document`,
    {
      method: "POST",
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${API_KEY}`, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
      body: JSON.stringify({
        title: `Contract — ${signer.name}`,
        recipients: [{ email: signer.email, name: signer.name, role: "SIGNER" }],
      }),
    }
  );
  const doc = await res.json();
  await fetch(`${BASE}/documents/${doc.documentId}/send`, {                         // 2
    method: "POST",
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${API_KEY}` },
  });
}

Step 2: Cache Document Metadata

// src/cache/documenso-cache.ts
import NodeCache from "node-cache";

const cache = new NodeCache({ stdTTL: 300, checkperiod: 60 }); // 5 min TTL

export async function getCachedDocument(client: Documenso, documentId: number) {
  const key = `doc:${documentId}`;
  const cached = cache.get(key);
  if (cached) return cached;

  const doc = await client.documents.getV0(documentId);
  // Only cache completed documents (immutable)
  if (doc.status === "COMPLETED") {
    cache.set(key, doc, 3600); // 1 hour for completed
  } else {
    cache.set(key, doc, 30); // 30 seconds for in-progress
  }
  return doc;
}

// Invalidate on webhook events
export function invalidateDocument(documentId: number) {
  cache.del(`doc:${documentId}`);
}

Step 3: Batch Operations with Concurrency Control

// src/batch/documenso-batch.ts
import PQueue from "p-queue";

const queue = new PQueue({
  concurrency: 5,       // Max 5 concurrent API calls
  interval: 1000,       // Per second window
  intervalCap: 10,      // Max 10 per second
});

export async function batchCreateDocuments(
  client: Documenso,
  templateId: number,
  signers: Array<{ email: string; name: string; company: string }>
): Promise<Array<{ email: string; documentId?: number; error?: string }>> {
  const results = await Promise.allSettled(
    signers.map((signer) =>
      queue.add(async () => {
        const res = await fetch(
          `https://app.documenso.com/api/v1/templates/${templateId}/create-document`,
          {
            method: "POST",
            headers: {
              Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.DOCUMENSO_API_KEY}`,
              "Content-Type": "application/json",
            },
            body: JSON.stringify({
              title: `Agreement — ${signer.company}`,
              recipients: [{ email: signer.email, name: signer.name, role: "SIGNER" }],
            }),
          }
        );
        if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${res.status}`);
        const doc = await res.json();

        // Send immediately
        await fetch(
          `https://app.documenso.com/api/v1/documents/${doc.documentId}/send`,
          {
            method: "POST",
            headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.DOCUMENSO_API_KEY}` },
          }
        );

        return { email: signer.email, documentId: doc.documentId };
      })
    )
  );

  return results.map((r, i) => {
    if (r.status === "fulfilled") return r.value as any;
    return { email: signers[i].email, error: (r.reason as Error).message };
  });
}

Step 4: Async Processing with Background Jobs

// src/jobs/signing-queue.ts
import Bull from "bull";

const signingQueue = new Bull("documenso-signing", process.env.REDIS_URL!);

// Producer: queue signing requests
export async function queueSigningRequest(data: {
  templateId: number;
  signerEmail: string;
  signerName: string;
}) {
  const job = await signingQueue.add(data, {
    attempts: 3,
    backoff: { type: "exponential", delay: 5000 },
  });
  return job.id;
}

// Consumer: process in background
signingQueue.process(5, async (job) => {
  const { templateId, signerEmail, signerName } = job.data;
  // Create and send document...
  return { status: "sent" };
});

signingQueue.on("completed", (job, result) => {
  console.log(`Job ${job.id} completed: ${JSON.stringify(result)}`);
});

signingQueue.on("failed", (job, err) => {
  console.error(`Job ${job.id} failed: ${err.message}`);
});

Step 5: Efficient Pagination

// Paginate through all documents without loading everything into memory
async function* iterateDocuments(client: Documenso, perPage = 50) {
  let page = 1;
  while (true) {
    const { documents } = await client.documents.findV0({
      page,
      perPage,
      orderByColumn: "createdAt",
      orderByDirection: "desc",
    });

    for (const doc of documents) {
      yield doc;
    }

    if (documents.length < perPage) break; // Last page
    page++;
  }
}

// Usage: process all documents without memory issues
for await (const doc of iterateDocuments(client)) {
  if (doc.status === "COMPLETED") {
    await archiveDocument(doc.id);
  }
}

Performance Targets

Operation	Target	If Exceeded
Single document create	< 500ms	Check network latency
Template create + send	< 1s	Normal for template workflow
Batch of 100 documents	< 30s	Use concurrency 5-10
Document list (page)	< 300ms	Add caching layer
Webhook processing	< 100ms	Process async, respond 200 immediately

Error Handling

Performance Issue	Cause	Solution
Slow responses	No connection reuse	Use singleton client pattern
Rate limit errors	Too many concurrent calls	Use p-queue with concurrency cap
Memory issues	Loading all documents	Use async generator pagination
Queue backlog	Slow processing	Increase worker concurrency

Resources

• p-queue Documentation
• Bull Queue
• node-cache

Next Steps

For cost optimization, see documenso-cost-tuning.