Kong has implemented a continuous performance testing framework integrated with GitHub Actions to evaluate the performance impact of every commit or pull request, focusing on metrics such as requests per second (RPS) and latency, with flame graphs used to identify performance bottlenecks. A significant bottleneck identified was the access to Nginx variables, which are widely used in Nginx modules, including those in OpenResty. Kong's team realized that using the ngx_http_get_variable API was less efficient compared to the ngx_http_get_indexed_variable API, which is typically used for variables expected to be accessed during configuration time. To address this, Kong introduced a new FFI function to access variables by index, substantially improving performance by mapping Lua table names to numeric indexes, significantly enhancing the speed of variable access by 73% for setting and 85% for getting, while also increasing requests per second by 12% and decreasing latency by 37%. These optimizations are set to be seamlessly integrated into existing OpenResty Lua APIs, with future plans to develop direct function-style APIs for variable access to further enhance performance.