Documentation Record your first script

Record your first script

This tutorial shows how to create a recording, set up custom rules, and generate a test script using k6 Studio.

In this tutorial, you will:

• Create a test recording using the https://test-api.k6.io/ service.
• Learn how to create groups to organize your test recordings.
• View the request and response data from a test recording.
• Use the Generator to create a correlation and a custom code rule.
• Validate your test script from the Generator.
• Export your test script.

Before you begin

To complete this tutorial, you’ll need to:

• Have a Windows, macOS, or Linux machine.
• Install k6 Studio.
• Install Google Chrome.

Create a test recording

To create a test recording:

1. Open the k6 Studio desktop application.

2. Click Record Flow.

3. Type “test-api.k6.io” under Starting URL.

4. Click Start recording. You should see a Google Chrome window open after a few seconds, and the Requests header in the k6 Studio application.

5. In k6 Studio, click the edit button next to Default group, rename it to “Homepage”, and press Enter.

6. Next click Create group, name it “Go to Create Crocs”, and press Enter. Groups can help organize your test scripts so they’re easier to edit and maintain in the future, and give you timing metrics for each group in your test script.

7. In the browser window, under Private APIs, click on /my/crocodiles next to the POST method. You should see an authentication dialog box in the next screen.

8. For username, enter “studio-user”. For password, enter “password”.

You’ll be logged in to the test service, and this will complete the requests for the “Go to Create Crocs” group.

Create a crocodile

In this next step, you’ll use the form for the test service to create a crocodile.

To create a crocodile:

1. In k6 Studio, click Create group, name it “Create Croc”, and press Enter.

2. In the browser window, you should have successfully authenticated in the previous step and be able to see the My Crocodiles page. Fill out the Name, Sex, and Date of birth fields of the HTML form section.

3. Click POST to submit the API request.

4. In k6 Studio, click Stop recording.

After you click Stop recording, k6 Studio saves the recording as a HAR file.

Rename the recording

In the sidebar, you can change the name of the recording after it’s created. To do that:

1. In k6 Studio, right click on the recording you just created in the left sidebar.
2. Rename the recording to create crocs.
3. Press Enter to confirm the changes.

Inspect response and request data

After you finish a recording, you can visualize the request and response data for each request included in your test recording.

To view the request and response data for a request, click on the request you would like to inspect from the Requests list.

The Request and Response panels have tabs where you can view the headers, payload, or cookies for a request, and the headers, content, and cookies for a response. For the response content tab, you can also view it in different formats, such as the raw data, or a preview.

Generate a script from a test recording

To generate a script from a test recording:

• If you still have the test recording open from the last step, click Create test generator on the top-right.
• You can also click + next to Generator on the left side, and then select your recording on the top-right.

A dialog box shows up that lets you select the hosts to use from the recording for generating the script. Select test-api.k6.io and press Continue.

The Generator lets you generate and modify a k6 test script via the user interface, without having to write JavaScript code.

On the top, you can inspect the recording from this view, similar to the Recorder. On the bottom, you can see the list of Test rules, with a Verification rule already added.

Test rules are objects that you can add to your generator file to modify the script generated from the recording. The Verification rule that’s created by default modifies the script to add Checks. These checks verify that when you run your script, the status codes you receive from responses are the same as the one you previously recorded. That’s a nice safety measure for your system that you get by default.

You can also inspect the script that would be generated by selecting the Script tab in the top panel.

Correlate dynamic data

If you inspect the data of the POST request, you can see that it makes use of a csrf token.

This is a token that was generated from a previous request and that was present in the form for security reasons. That’s an example of a dynamic value that you can’t predict when generating the script because that value is generated by the server when you reach the form, and the server expects it back when you submit the form.

You’ll need a way to generate the script so that it knows to get this value at runtime and replace the value from the recording from this extraction. You can do that by using the Correlation Rule.

To add a correlation rule:

1. In k6 Studio, click + Add rule and select Correlation from the entries.
2. Under Extractor, in the Begin field, type csrfmiddlewaretoken" value=".
3. In the End field, type ".

On the request list, you’ll see that a match label appears next to a couple of requests. These are the requests that this particular rule is either extracting or replacing a value from. At the bottom of the rule editor, you can see the value that got extracted.

k6 Studio updates the labels in real-time as you edit your rule. It’s useful to see when you actually have a match and where you are actually replacing values. When replacing the value, by default the rule will try to find occurrences of that value and automatically replace those. If you need more control over it you can open the toggle to customize the replacer selector.

With this rule in place, you have added dynamic data correlation to your script without having to touch any code.

Parameterize a value

You can make use of the parameterization rule to modify a value from some text, and replace it with a variable or even data from a CSV or JSON file.

To add a parameterization rule:

1. Under Test rules, click + Add rule and select Parameterization.
2. Change the Type field to Text.
3. In the Text input, insert the name you used earlier when creating a crocodile.
4. On the right-side, insert the new value you want to replace with under Value. For example Grot.

You’ll see that the POST request from the recording now has the match label next to it. If you inspect the Payload you can see that it’s now using the newly defined name.

Insert a custom JavaScript snippet

You can make use of the Custom Code rule to insert a custom JavaScript snippet in your script.

1. In k6 Studio, click + Add rule and select Custom Code from the entries.
2. In the Snippet input, type console.log('hello k6').

If you open the Script tab, you can see the script getting updated in real-time with the snippet being inserted before every request.

Validate a test script

To validate a test script:

1. In k6 Studio, click on the Script tab next to Requests.
2. Click Validate on the top-right.

The Validator runs your script in a single iteration and lets you inspect the requests and responses sent, and see any logs and checks from k6.

The checks generated by the default Verification rule that can give you a quick glimpse if the script is working as expected.

In the Validator, you can also inspect requests details similar to the Recorder and Generator, giving you a powerful tool to debug your script.

Export a test script

To export a test script:

1. In k6 Studio, click on the Script tab next to Requests.
2. Click Export on the top-right.
3. Enter a name for the script.
4. Click Export.

After you save the script, it’ll show up under Scripts on the left side. You can right click on the script and click Open containing folder to find it in your system, and then use k6 to run it.

Summary

To summarize:

• You created a test recording using the https://test-api.k6.io/ service.
• You created groups to organize a test recording into logical steps.
• You learned how to view request and response data from a test recording.
• You created a Generator from a test recording, and learned how to use the correlation, parameterization, and custom code rules.
• You learned how to validate a test script after setting up rules in the Generator.
• You exported a test script from your test recording and rules setup.

Now you can use the same steps to create a test recording for an application or service that you own and generate test scripts. You can then use those scripts to run performance tests by using the k6 CLI, or Grafana Cloud k6.

Next steps

Now that you learned the basics of how to use k6 Studio, you can:

• Learn how to install and run a test using the k6 CLI.
• Learn how to run your test using Grafana Cloud k6.