Despite the hype, Lambda cold starts persist, and the problem has just shifted to the INIT phase. We discovered that even with Node.js 22, our Lambdas were still experiencing crippling delays. Here's what we found and how we finally solved it. Understanding Lambda Cold Starts To tackle the issue of cold starts, we need to understand the Lambda lifecycle. When a Lambda function is invoked, it goes through several phases: INIT, INVOKE, and SHUTDOWN. The INIT phase is where the function's runtime environment is set up, and this is where the cold start problem has shifted. import { LambdaClient , UpdateFunctionConfigurationCommand } from ' @aws-sdk/client-lambda ' ; const lambdaClient = new LambdaClient ({ region : ' us-east-1 ' }); const updateFunctionConfig = async () => { const params = { FunctionName : ' my-lambda-function ' , Timeout : 10 , }; const command = new UpdateFunctionConfigurationCommand ( params ); try { const response = await lambdaClient . send ( command ); console .…