Where Did the Time Go?

"It's slow" is the vaguest ticket in existence. But you already know the four stages every request walks through — so "slow" just means one of them is eating the time. curl -w prints the stopwatch.

Run this (it's in your dev container; -o /dev/null -s hides the body):

curl -o /dev/null -s -w '
namelookup:    %{time_namelookup}s
connect:       %{time_connect}s
appconnect:    %{time_appconnect}s
starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer}s
total:         %{time_total}s
' https://example.com/

Typical output:

namelookup:    0.012s
connect:       0.145s
appconnect:    0.289s
starttransfer: 0.433s
total:         0.434s

The stopwatch is cumulative

Each number is time since the start — so each stage's cost is the gap between neighbors (Cloudflare — A Question of Timing):

time_namelookup

DNS done — stage ① cost, straight up.

time_connect

TCP connected — stage ② cost is connect − namelookup.

time_appconnect

TLS done — stage ③ cost is appconnect − connect.

time_starttransfer

First response byte arrived — the gap after appconnect is mostly the server thinking.

time_total

Last byte arrived — the rest is transfer.

Try it on two sites now — one nearby, one overseas — and see which gaps grow. That difference is round-trip time, and it becomes a main character later.