Memoize the per-deploy HTML shell with an ETag so return visits ride a 304; answer HEAD instead of erroring. Cache the subscriber tally in Redis with a 15-minute stale-while-revalidate window so the logged-out gate stops waiting on a full Stripe pagination. Load the checkout script and the chat editor lazily on first use and defer the auth script. Start the subscription check alongside the user-existence probe on boot instead of after it. Keep the Redis client connected between requests under the long-lived server, and hold successful userinfo lookups in a short in-process cache. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01FryvSZ4bmGcpc7q13FNaCj