Athletic Awards Database work_mem Policy for Fast Leaderboard Sorts
Intent: research — an athletic awards database postgres work_mem policy defines how much memory the database allocates per sort or hash operation when executing leaderboard ranking queries, and documents which sessions, roles, and query types are authorized to raise that limit above the system default. PostgreSQL’s work_mem parameter controls the size of the in-memory buffer available to each sort node and hash node in a query plan. When a leaderboard sort — ranking athletes by season points, career statistics, or multi-sport honors — produces more data than work_mem allows, PostgreSQL spills the sort to temporary disk files and query response time increases proportionally. A written policy governs when work_mem can be raised, by how much, at which scope (session, role, or transaction), and how the outcome is verified.
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