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Explore practical k6 examples for common load testing scenarios. Each example includes complete, working test scripts you can run immediately.

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Getting Started

All examples use real endpoints from the k6 demo applications. You can copy and run them directly: 
k6 run script.js

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Available Examples

HTTP Authentication

Test APIs with Basic Auth, Bearer tokens, NTLM, and AWS Signature v4

API CRUD Operations

Complete REST API testing with Create, Read, Update, and Delete operations

WebSockets

Real-time WebSocket connection testing with bidirectional messaging

Data Uploads

File upload testing with multipart requests and binary data

Correlation & Dynamic Data

Extract and reuse dynamic tokens, CSRF tokens, and session data

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Common Patterns

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Basic Test Structure

Most k6 tests follow this pattern: 
import http from 'k6/http';
import { check, sleep } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  vus: 10,
  duration: '30s',
};

export default function () {
  const res = http.get('https://test.k6.io');
  check(res, { 'status is 200': (r) => r.status === 200 });
  sleep(1);
}

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Using Environment Variables

Make tests configurable with environment variables: 
const BASE_URL = __ENV.BASE_URL || 'https://test.k6.io';
const API_TOKEN = __ENV.API_TOKEN;
Run with: 
k6 run -e BASE_URL=https://api.example.com -e API_TOKEN=secret script.js

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Test Lifecycle

k6 tests have four distinct phases:
  1. Init context - Load files, import modules, define global variables
  2. Setup stage - Run once to prepare test data (optional)
  3. VU stage - Main test logic, runs repeatedly for each VU
  4. Teardown stage - Clean up after test completes (optional)
// 1. Init context
import http from 'k6/http';

const data = JSON.parse(open('./data.json'));

// 2. Setup stage
export function setup() {
  const res = http.post('https://api.example.com/auth', {
    username: 'user',
    password: 'pass',
  });
  return { token: res.json('token') };
}

// 3. VU stage
export default function (data) {
  const res = http.get('https://api.example.com/data', {
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${data.token}` },
  });
}

// 4. Teardown stage
export function teardown(data) {
  console.log('Test complete');
}

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Next Steps

Test Types

Learn about smoke, load, stress, and spike testing

Metrics & Checks

Validate responses and track performance metrics

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