Getting Started

Straden is a self-hosted load testing platform built on k6. It gives your team a web UI for organising load tests, AI agents that write and fix k6 scripts, live run monitoring, and AI-generated performance reports — all from a single Docker image.

Core concepts

ConceptWhat it is
ProjectA workspace for one system or team. Holds tests, repositories and connectors.
TestA load testing goal with a target URL (e.g. https://api.example.com).
ScriptA k6 script belonging to a test — usually one per scenario (smoke, load, stress, soak). Stored as a folder with a script.js entry point.
RunOne execution of a script. Produces a k6 summary, a console log and time-series metrics in InfluxDB.
InsightAn AI-generated report analysing a completed run.
ConnectorA link to an external system: Git providers for source code, and Prometheus / databases / Redis for server-side metrics.

Install in 60 seconds

You need Docker with the Compose plugin.

BASH
mkdir straden && cd straden
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kwasii1/straden/main/deploy/compose.yaml
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kwasii1/straden/main/deploy/.env.example -o .env
docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8000. The first visit opens the setup wizard, where you create the admin account. There is no public registration — the admin invites everyone else under Settings → Users.

The first start takes a minute: the app container waits for Postgres, runs migrations and generates the instance secrets.

Your first load test

  1. Connect an AI provider (optional but recommended). Go to Settings → AI Integrations, add an API key for OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama or another provider, and pick a model.
  2. Create a project from the Projects page.
  3. Create a test with New test: give it a name and the target URL you want to load test.
  4. Generate scripts. Open the test and describe what you need in the agent chat — for example "a smoke test and a 5 minute load test at 50 VUs against /api/products". The Test Agent proposes a plan, then creates one script per scenario after you approve it. You can also write scripts by hand in the built-in editor.
  5. Run it. Open a script and press Run. The run page streams the k6 console output and live charts.
  6. Read the insight. When the run finishes, generate an insight for a plain-English report: overall health, what is slow, findings by severity and recommended fixes.

Where to next