jargon

Frontend & browser·Routing and navigation

the page changed without a reload, so none of your load-time metrics fired for it.

Soft navigation

Also calledclient-side navigation, in-place navigation

A route change handled in the browser without a document load. It is cheap and it is invisible to the performance APIs, which were built around document loads — so a single-page application can report excellent Core Web Vitals while every navigation after the first is slow. Measuring them requires the newer soft navigation instrumentation or your own timing around route transitions.

Commonly confused with