Results output

As k6 generates load for your test, it also takes measurements of the performance of the system. These measurements, called metrics, provide data for test interpretation.

k6 generates many metrics about the load that your test generates and how the system under test (SUT) responds. Broadly, you can analyze metrics in two ways:

• As summary statistics, in an end-of-test-summary report.
• As time-series data, which you can write to a file, or stream to external services such as Prometheus or InfluxDB.

You can customize almost every aspect of result output:

• Create custom metrics
• Configure new summary statistics and print them not only to stdout but also as HTML, JSON, or any text format.
• Stream the results to one or multiple services of your choice.

Metrics

Documentation: Using metrics

k6 comes with built-in metrics about the load generated and the system response. Key metrics include:

• http_req_duration, the end-to-end time of all requests (that is, the total latency)
• http_req_failed, the total number of failed requests
• iterations, the total number of iterations

End-of-test-summary report

Documentation: End-of-test-summary report

By default, k6 prints summarized results to stdout.

When you run a test, k6 outputs a plain-text logo, your test progress, and some test details. After the test finishes, k6 prints the full details and summary statistics of the test metrics.

The end-of-test-summary shows aggregated statistical values for your result metrics, including:

• Median and average values
• Minimum and maximum values
• p90, p95, and p99 values

You can configure the statistics to report with the --summary-trend-stats option. For example, this command displays only median, p95, and p99.9 values.

k6 run --iterations=100 --vus=10 \
--summary-trend-stats="med,p(95),p(99.9)" script.js

Custom reports with handleSummary()

For completely customized end-of-summary reports, k6 provides the handleSummary() function.

At the end of the test, k6 automatically creates an object with all aggregated statistics. The handleSummary() function can process this object into a custom report in any text format: JSON, HTML, XML, and whatever else.

Time series and external outputs

The condensed end-of-test summary provides a top-level view of the test. For deeper analysis, you need to look at granular time-series data, which has metrics and timestamps for every point of the test.

You can access time-series metrics in two ways:

• Write them to a JSON or CSV file.
• Stream them to an external service.

In both cases, you can use the --out flag and declare your export format as the flag argument. If you want to send the metrics to multiple sources, you can use multiple flags with multiple arguments:

$ k6 run \
--out json=test.json \
--out influxdb=http://localhost:8086/k6

The available built-in outputs include: