---
title: "Run your first automated test | Grafana Labs"
description: "Trigger a pipeline run, confirm the performance gate passes or fails correctly, and review results in CI logs."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Run your first automated test

You’ve configured k6 as a pipeline step with exit code handling. Now trigger a clean automated run and confirm the gate behaves as expected end to end. At this stage, results live in your CI logs. In the next milestone, you’ll stream those results to Grafana Cloud k6 for history and team visibility.

To run your first automated test, complete the following steps:

1. Confirm your workflow file is committed and your test script path matches the workflow `path` (or GitLab `script`) value.
2. Trigger a pipeline run. The simplest way is to push an empty commit or open a pull request:
   
   Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```bash
   git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger k6 performance pipeline"
   git push
   ```
3. Open the workflow run in your CI platform and watch the k6 job. Confirm that:
   
   - The job checks out your repository
   - k6 starts and prints the test summary
   - The job finishes green when thresholds pass
4. Optionally force a controlled failure one more time (tighten a threshold, push, confirm red, then revert). This is the moment the team can trust the gate: green means within budget, red means stop and investigate.
5. Save a link to a successful run in your team’s runbook or Definition of Done notes. From here, performance is no longer “run it when you remember.” It’s a pipeline dependency.

In the next milestone, you stream results to Grafana Cloud k6 so automated runs persist beyond CI log retention.