diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..64fb160
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+## 2026-05-16 - Enabling Middleware-level Optimizations
+**Learning:** For mostly static Django sites, enabling `GZipMiddleware` and `ConditionalGetMiddleware` provides significant performance gains (60-70% payload reduction and 304 support) with minimal configuration and risk.
+**Action:** Always check if these middlewares are present in Django projects, as they are often omitted in default or minimal setups.
diff --git a/config/settings.py b/config/settings.py
index 28f1d9d..390c663 100644
--- a/config/settings.py
+++ b/config/settings.py
@@ -37,6 +37,12 @@
 
 MIDDLEWARE = [
     "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
+    # ⚡ Bolt: Compress responses to reduce bandwidth usage.
+    # Expected impact: ~60-70% reduction in HTML payload size.
+    "django.middleware.gzip.GZipMiddleware",
+    # ⚡ Bolt: Support ETag/Last-Modified for conditional GET requests.
+    # Expected impact: Faster repeat visits by allowing 304 Not Modified responses.
+    "django.middleware.http.ConditionalGetMiddleware",
     "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
     "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
     "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",