Add first of the new diagnostics articles to guides

locale/en/docs/guides/diagnostics-flamegraph.md

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+---
+title: Diagnostics - Flame Graphs
+layout: docs.hbs
+---
+
+# Flame Graphs
+
+## What's a flame graph useful for?
+
+Flame graphs are a way of visualizing CPU time spent in functions. They can help you pin down where you spend too much time doing synchronous operations.
+
+## How to create a flame graph 
+
+You might have heard creating a flame graph for Node.js is difficult, but that's not true (anymore).
+Solaris vms are no longer needed for flame graphs!
+
+Flame graphs are generated from `perf` output, which is not a node-specific tool. While it's the most powerful way to visualize CPU time spent, it may have issues with how JavaScript code is optimized in Node 8 and above. See [perf output issues](#perf-output-issues) section below.
+
+### Use a pre-packaged tool
+
+If you want a single step that produces a flame graph locally, try [0x](https://www.npmjs.com/package/0x)
+
+For diagnosing production deployments, read these notes: [0x production servers](https://github.com/davidmarkclements/0x/blob/master/docs/production-servers.md)
+
+### Create a flame graph with system perf tools
+
+The purpose of this guide is to show steps involved in creating a flame graph and keep you in control of each step.
+
+If you want to understand each step better take a look at the sections that follow were we go into more detail.
+
+Now let's get to work.
+
+1. Install `perf` (usually available through the linux-tools-common package if not already installed)
+2. try running `perf` - it might complain about missing kernel modules, install them too
+3. run node with perf enabled (see [perf output issues](#perf-output-issues) for tips specific to node versions)
+```bash
+perf record -e cycles:u -g -- node --perf-basic-prof app.js
+``` 
+4. disregard warnings unless they're saying you can't run perf due to missing packages; you may get some warnings about not being able to access kernel module samples which you're not after anyway.
+5. Run `perf script > perfs.out` to generate the data file you'll visualize in a moment. It's useful to [apply some cleanup](#filtering-out-node-internal-functions) for a more readable graph 
+6. install stackvis if not yet installed `npm i -g stackvis`
+7. run `stackvis perf < perfs.out > flamegraph.htm`
+
+Now open the flame graph file in your favorite browser and watch it burn. It's color-coded so you can focus on the most saturated orange bars first. They're likely to represent CPU heavy functions.
+
+Worth mentioning - if you click an element of a flame graph a zoom-in of its surroundings will get displayed above the graph.
+
+### Using perf to sample a running process
+
+This is great for recording flame graph data from an already running process that you don't want to interrupt. Imagine a production process with a hard to reproduce issue.
+
+```
+perf record -F99 -p `pgrep -n node` -g -- sleep 3
+```
+
+Wait, what is that `sleep 3` for? It's there to keep the perf running - despite `-p` option pointing to a different pid, the command needs to be executed on a process and end with it. 
+perf runs for the life of the command you pass to it, whether or not you're actually profiling that command. `sleep 3` ensures that perf runs for 3 seconds.
+
+Why is `-F` (profiling frequency) set to 99? It's a reasonable default. You can adjust if you want. 
+-F99 tells perf to take 99 samples per second, for more precision increase the value. Lower values should produce less output with less precise results. Precision you need depends on how long your CPU intensive functions really run. IF you're looking for the reason of a noticeable slowdown 99 frames per second should be more than enough.
+
+After you get that 3 second perf record, proceed with generating the flame graph with the last two steps from above.
+
+### Filtering out Node internal functions
+
+
+Usually you just want to look at the performance of your own calls, so filtering out Node and V8 internal functions can make the graph much easier to read. You can clean up your perf file with:
+
+```bash
+sed -i \
+  -e "/( __libc_start| LazyCompile | v8::internal::| Builtin:| Stub:| LoadIC:|\[unknown\]| LoadPolymorphicIC:)/d" \
+  -e 's/ LazyCompile:[*~]\?/ /' \
+  perfs.out
+```
+
+If you read your flame graph and it seems odd, as if something is missing in the key function taking up most time, try generating your flame graph without the filters - maybe you got a rare case of an issue with Node itself.
+
+### Node's profiling options
+
+`--perf-basic-prof-only-functions` and `--perf-basic-prof` are the two that are useful for debugging your JavaScript code. Other options are used for profiling Node itself, which is outside the scope of this guide.
+
+`--perf-basic-prof-only-functions` produces less output, so it's the option with least overhead.
+
+Why do I need them at all?
+
+Well, without these options you'll still get a flame graph, but with most bars labeled `v8::Function::Call`.
+
+## perf output issues
+
+### Node.js 8.x V8 pipeline changes
+
+Node.js 8.x and above ships with new optimizations to JavaScript compilation pipeline in V8 engine which makes function names/references unreachable for perf sometimes. (It's called Turbofan) 
+
+The result is you might not get your function names right in the flame graph. 
+
+You'll notice `ByteCodeHandler:` where you'd expect function names.
+
+[0x](https://www.npmjs.com/package/0x) has some mitigations for that built in. 
+
+For details see:
+- https://github.com/nodejs/benchmarking/issues/168
+- https://github.com/nodejs/diagnostics/issues/148#issuecomment-369348961
+
+### Node.js 10+ 
+
+Node.js 10.x addresses the issue with Turbofan using the`--interpreted-frames-native-stack` flag.
+
+Run `node --interpreted-frames-native-stack --perf-basic-prof-only-functions` to get finction names in the flame graph regardless of which pipeline V8 used to compile your JavaScript.
+
+
+## Examples
+
+Practice capturing flame graphs yourself with [a flame graph exercise](https://github.com/naugtur/node-example-flamegraph)!