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This is documentation for the next version of K6. For the latest stable release, go to the latest version.

Open source

Constant VUs

With the constant-vus executor, a fixed number of VUs execute as many iterations as possible for a specified amount of time.

For a shortcut to this executor, use the VUs and duration options.

Options

Besides the common configuration options, this executor has the following options:

OptionTypeDescriptionDefault
duration(required)stringTotal scenario duration (excluding gracefulStop).-
vusintegerNumber of VUs to run concurrently.1

When to use

Use this executor if you need a specific number of VUs to run for a certain amount of time.

Example

This examples schedules 10 VUs to run constantly for a duration 30 seconds.

JavaScript
import http from 'k6/http';
import { sleep } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  discardResponseBodies: true,
  scenarios: {
    contacts: {
      executor: 'constant-vus',
      vus: 10,
      duration: '30s',
    },
  },
};

export default function () {
  http.get('https://test.k6.io/contacts.php');
  // Injecting sleep
  // Total iteration time is sleep + time to finish request.
  sleep(0.5);
}

Observations

The following graph depicts the performance of the example script:

Constant VUs

Based upon our test scenario inputs and results:

  • The number of VUs is fixed at 10, and are initialized before the test begins;
  • Overall test duration is fixed at the configured 30 second duration;
  • Each iteration of the default function is expected to be roughly 515ms, or ~2/s;
  • Maximum throughput (highest efficiency) is therefore expected to be ~20 iters/s, 2 iters/s * 10 VUs;
  • We see that the maximum throughput is reached and maintained for the majority of the test;
  • Approximately 600 iterations are therefore performed in total, 30 seconds * 20 iters/s.