Hi folks,
My name is Lakshya, and I recently joined the Coda team at Superhuman as a software engineer!
We know that performance and scalability are key needs for many Coda docs. We’re working on some exciting changes that will enable huge step changes in scale, as we previewed in the recent tables & databases roundtable.
We also want to equip you with the right tools to understand and manage your doc’s size, and provide better awareness for very large docs that approach limits in what our current infrastructure can support.
TL;DR → Before we get into the details, here’s what’s changing:
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Better visibility into what impacts your doc size → A refreshed doc statistics panel now shows total doc size with more detail on contributing objects, and the doc map shows automation and column-level references. This can help you manage size with confidence.
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Earlier awareness of existing limits → We’re providing more awareness when docs approach existing technical thresholds at very large sizes, where certain features like the developer API, new cross-doc connections, and calculations are unsupported. These are existing limits with no changes; we’re simply trying to bring them to your attention before your doc exceeds that limit.
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Refreshed guidance on downsizing docs → New content covers the most common doc size culprits and how to address them based on real customer scenarios.
Refreshed Doc statistics
Addressing a long-time ask, you’ll now always see the doc’s total size in doc statistics.
We’ve also separated the size of table content associated with base tables from the size used to store the configuration of additional views. Total cell count is now also visible, and we’ve made it clearer that attachments do not count towards the total doc size.
Updated Doc map
For every table, you can now see what automations are associated with it—see the “Referenced by” section.
For every column in a table, you can now sort by how often that column is referenced by other objects, by rows with values in that column, or by size.
Additionally, we now allow you to dig into any column and see what other objects reference it.
These Doc map updates should help you better understand how objects in a doc are connected or set up, what is being used or not, and triage what might be safe to remove.
Limit awareness
Coda has technical thresholds where certain features can become unreliable at very large doc sizes. To keep your docs reliable and our systems stable, we pause certain features at very large sizes.
We’re providing more awareness of these existing limits based on feedback from users who encountered them unexpectedly, and only realized they were close to the limit after something stopped working.
If your doc approaches one of these limits, you’ll now see more visibility in the docs statistics panel.
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125 MB: Developer APIs and inserting new cross-doc syncs into other docs aren’t supported.
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325 MB: Calculations, automations, and cross-doc aren’t supported.
These are not new limits, and we’re simply providing more visibility if your doc grows large enough to be affected.
Our goal is to help you remediate proactively, rather than be surprised. If your doc approaches these limits, the improved features above and new content linked below can help you better take action to reduce the size of your doc.
We’re also working on architecture changes that will enable much larger tables and docs without needing these limits, and are excited to share more soon.
Refreshed guidance
We refreshed our help center article for doc size with more specific guidance on identifying the most impactful size culprits and walk through how you can downsize—you can read more here.
This was written based on many of the scenarios all our customers have shared with us—including folks here, thank you! Although each doc can be unique, we tried to capture as many of the patterns so you can apply them to most scenarios. There’s still more we could do, so feel free to share your feedback in the comments, and as always, many thanks for all your feedback!
Taken together, these changes connect to something bigger. Performance and scalability are features central to our roadmap at Coda. These tooling and awareness improvements are part of that commitment.
We’re also deeply committed to improving the underlying scale of what’s possible in Coda with some big changes coming soon, as we previewed in the recent tables and databases roundtable.
