Writing tests

Starting out: k9 new

k9 new writes a starter that runs as is. It requests one URL with a check, then sleeps, with 10 VUs for 30s and thresholds on errors and p(95).

k9 new                                  # script.py: async def default() (Tier 3)
k9 new load.yaml                        # a declarative plan (Tier 1)
k9 new load.py --template plan          # a k9.plan script (Tier 1)
k9 new load.py --template sync          # def default(), a thread per VU (Tier 3)
k9 new --url https://staging.example.com/health

The template comes from the file's extension unless --template is given; the default URL is the test server's /ok. Python scripts also read the URL from -e TARGET=…. An existing file is only replaced with --force.

From a recording: k9 convert

k9 convert turns a HAR file (saved from a browser's developer tools or a proxy) into a plan. Each page becomes a group, and a pause between requests becomes a sleep. Each request gets a check on the status it was recorded with. Headers the client sets itself are left out. So are redirects k9 follows, and cookies a response set, since the VU's cookie jar sends those.

k9 convert login.har -O login.yaml --only shop.example.com --no-static
k9 run login.yaml

Values a response handed out and later requests sent back are correlated. Each one is taken from that response with a json, header or regex extractor and sent as {{ variable }}, so each run uses its own token. This covers tokens, session and request ids, and CSRF fields in HTML. A value counts when it's at least 8 characters long and is either opaque (letters and digits) or under a name like token, session, csrf or …id, and the client didn't send it before the server did. --no-correlate keeps the recorded values. --skip HOST leaves a host out (it takes subdomains too, like --only).