Graceful stop

The gracefulStop is a period at the end of the test in which k6 lets iterations in progress finish.

If a test has a set duration or ramp down, its possible that k6 could interrupt iterations in progress. These interruptions can lead to skewed metrics and unexpected test results. To deal with this, k6 scenarios have a gracefulStop and gracefulRampDown options.

Description

This option is available for all executors except externally-controlled and allows the user to specify a duration to wait before forcefully interrupting them. The default value of this property is 30s.

Example

1import http from 'k6/http';
2
3export const options = {
4  discardResponseBodies: true,
5  scenarios: {
6    contacts: {
7      executor: 'constant-vus',
8      vus: 100,
9      duration: '10s',
10      gracefulStop: '3s',
11    },
12  },
13};
14
15export default function () {
16  const delay = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5) + 1;
17  http.get(`https://httpbin.test.k6.io/delay/${delay}`);
18}

Running this script would result in something like:

running (13.0s), 000/100 VUs, 349 complete and 23 interrupted iterations
contacts ✓ [======================================] 100 VUs  10s

Notice that even though the total test duration is 10s, the actual execution time was 13s because of gracefulStop, giving the VUs a 3s additional time to complete iterations in progress. 23 of the iterations currently in progress did not complete within this window and was therefore interrupted.

Additional Information

A similar option exists for the ramping-vus executor: gracefulRampDown. This specifies the time k6 should wait for any iterations in progress to finish before VUs are returned to the global pool during a ramp down period defined in stages.