---
title: "Workaround to calculate iteration_duration | Grafana k6 documentation"
description: "A threshold can calculate the value of a metric excluding the results of the setup and teardown functions"
---

# Workaround to calculate iteration\_duration

A common requested case is to track the `iteration_duration` metric without including time spent for `setup` and `teardown` functions. This feature is not yet available but a threshold on `iteration_duration` or any pre-existing metrics can be used as a workaround.

It’s based on the concept of creating thresholds for sub-metrics created by tags for the required scope and setting the criteria that always pass. It works with any enabled tags that already works with threshold, for example:

- `iteration_duration{scenario:default}` generates a sub-metric collecting samples only for the default scenario’s iteration. `scenario:default` is used because that’s the internal k6 scenario name when we haven’t specified `options.`scenarios\` explicitly and are just using the execution shortcuts instead.
- `iteration_duration{group:::setup}` or `iteration_duration{group:::teardown}` create sub-metrics collecting the duration only for `setup` and `teardown`. `k6` implicitly creates [groups](/docs/k6/latest/using-k6/tags-and-groups/#groups) for `setup` and `teardown`, and `::` is the group separator.
- `http_req_duration{scenario:default}` can be useful as well for isolating executed long-running requests.

JavaScript ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```javascript
import { sleep } from 'k6';
import http from 'k6/http';

export const options = {
  vus: 1,
  iterations: 1,
  thresholds: {
    'iteration_duration{scenario:default}': [`max>=0`],
    'iteration_duration{group:::setup}': [`max>=0`],
    'iteration_duration{group:::teardown}': [`max>=0`],
    'http_req_duration{scenario:default}': [`max>=0`],
  },
};

export function setup() {
  http.get('https://quickpizza.grafana.com/api/delay/5');
}

export default function () {
  http.get('http://test.k6.io/?where=default');
  sleep(0.5);
}

export function teardown() {
  http.get('https://quickpizza.grafana.com/api/delay/3');
  sleep(5);
}
```

Dedicated sub-metrics have been generated collecting samples only for the scope defined by thresholds:

Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```bash
  █ THRESHOLDS

    http_req_duration{scenario:default}
    ✓ 'max>=0' max=117.34ms

    iteration_duration{group:::setup}
    ✓ 'max>=0' max=0s

    iteration_duration{group:::teardown}
    ✓ 'max>=0' max=0s

    iteration_duration{scenario:default}
    ✓ 'max>=0' max=1.13s
```