Lazy-load non-essential blueprints to improve desktop startup

Problem

Some blueprints are imported during create_app() even though they are not required for desktop startup (SERVER_MODE=False). If we only import essential blueprints on startup and lazy load the other this would definetly result in faster load times.

After tracing the startup flow here is a breakdown of the blureprints and how we should ideally load them:

Modules that should remain eagerly loaded

Module	Reason
misc	Provides the /misc/ping endpoint that Electron polls while waiting for the backend to start. Without it, the application never gets past the splash screen.
browser	Hasindex(), the first page Electron loads after startup. Deferring it only shifts the wait from the splash screen to a blank window. preferences also depends on it.
Core authenticate	Required for session and login handling, even in desktop mode.

Good lazy-loading candidates

Module	Load when	Reason	Approx. size
authenticate (kerberos, ldap, mfa, oauth2, webserver)	Never in desktop mode	Gate imports in authenticate/registry.py behind config.SERVER_MODE. Desktop runs with SERVER_MODE=False and doesn't use these providers.	~14 files
tools	First tool opens	Query Tool, Debugger, Backup/Restore, ERD, Import/Export, etc. aren't needed during startup.	~155 files
llm	AI assistant opened	Depends on pgadmin.tools.user_management, so it would likely move together with tools.	~32 files
dashboard	First server/database opened	The dashboard isn't shown until after a connection is opened.	~7 files

Note: Considering how often tools are used, we can keep the tools blueprint in the early-loading category for a few select tools.

Not worth lazy-loading

These modules are tiny (1–4 files each):

• preferences
• settings
• about
• help
• redirects

Estimated impact

Potentially removes eager imports for roughly:

• tools
• llm
• External authentication backends

≈ 190 of ~915 Python files

File count is only a rough proxy and not an estimate of startup improvement.

Validation

Profile import costs:

python -X importtime -c "from pgadmin.tools import blueprint"
python -X importtime -c "from pgadmin.llm import blueprint"
python -X importtime -c "from pgadmin.authenticate.registry import AuthSourceRegistry"

Then compare against overall create_app() startup time.

Proposal

• Gate external auth provider imports behind config.SERVER_MODE.
• Lazy-load tools on first use.
• Lazy-load llm together with tools.
• Optionally lazy-load dashboard if it can be done cleanly.

I would be happy to start from the authenticate change since it's small and self-contained.

This is not a concrete implementation proposal, but rather a summary of observations from tracing the desktop startup flow and a few areas that might be worth exploring. I have not profiled import times yet but plan to do so shortly, so these suggestions are based on the current startup path and module dependencies rather than measured performance. However, I will shortly run the performance tests and provide details as a follow-up to this issue.

I would also appreciate some guidance on whether these are the right areas to target, or if there is a better approach I'm overlooking.

Thanks

Start by tracing create_app() and running the three python -X importtime commands listed in the issue, then compare those results with overall startup time. Review authenticate/registry.py and the blueprint loading paths for tools, llm, and dashboard. Done means a measured, agreed scope for lazy loading that preserves the essential desktop startup flow.