Grafana k6 OSS: Demo & Lab

1. Install k6 on Windows

You have a few options. I’ll show the two easiest:

Option A – Using winget (recommended if available)

1. Open Windows Terminal / PowerShell as Administrator.
2. Run: winget install grafana.k6
3. After install, verify: k6 version You should see something like: k6 v0.xx.x

Option B – Using Chocolatey

If you’re already using Chocolatey:

1. Open PowerShell (Admin).
2. Install: choco install k6
3. Verify: k6 version

Option C – Portable (ZIP) Binary (no package manager)

1. Go to: https://github.com/grafana/k6/releases (in your browser).
2. Download the latest Windows x64 .zip.
3. Extract it to a folder, e.g.: C:\tools\k6\
4. Add that folder to your PATH:
   • Press Win → search Environment Variables → “Edit the system environment variables”.
   • Click Environment Variables…
   • Under User variables or System variables, select Path → Edit → New → add: C:\tools\k6\
   • Click OK several times.
5. Open a new PowerShell and run: k6 version

2. Create a Project Folder

Let’s keep things clean.

1. Choose a workspace folder, e.g.: mkdir C:\k6-demo cd C:\k6-demo
2. You’ll put all your k6 scripts here.

3. Your First “Hello World” k6 Script

We’ll create a very simple script that:

• Sends 1 HTTP GET request to a test URL.
• Checks that the response status is 200.
• Prints basic stats at the end.

3.1 Create the script file

1. In C:\k6-demo, create a file named hello-world.js.

If you like using Notepad:

notepad .\hello-world.js
Code language: CSS (css)

Paste this code inside:

import http from 'k6/http';
import { check, sleep } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  vus: 1,          // number of virtual users
  duration: '10s', // total test duration
};

export default function () {
  // 1) Make a simple GET request
  const res = http.get('https://test.k6.io');

  // 2) Validate response
  check(res, {
    'status is 200': (r) => r.status === 200,
  });

  // 3) Small pause between iterations
  sleep(1);
}
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Save and close the file.

4. Run the Hello World Test

From inside the folder:

cd C:\k6-demo
k6 run .\hello-world.js
Code language: CSS (css)

You will see something like:

          /\      |‾‾| /‾‾/  /‾‾/
     /\  /  \     |  |/  /  /  /
    /  \/    \    |     (  /  /
   /          \   |  |\  \/  /
  / __________ \  |__| \____/

  execution: local
     script: hello-world.js
     output: -

  scenarios: (100.00%) 1 scenario, 1 max VUs, 10s max duration (incl. graceful stop):
           * default: 1 looping VUs for 10s (gracefulStop: 30s)

running (10.0s), 0/1 VUs, 10 complete and 0 interrupted iterations
default ✓ [======================================] 1 VUs  10s

     ✓ status is 200

     checks...................: 100.00% ✓ 10 ✗ 0
     http_req_duration........: avg=150ms min=120ms max=200ms ...
     http_reqs................: 10  (1.0/s)
     vus......................: 1
Code language: PHP (php)

5. Understand the Output

Important fields to understand:

• checks – shows how many checks passed/failed:
  • ✓ 10 ✗ 0 → all 10 requests returned status 200.
• http_req_duration – time it took to complete each HTTP request.
  • avg, min, max, percentiles.
• http_reqs – total number of HTTP requests (10 here).
• vus – how many virtual users were active (1 here).

Since status is 200 is the only check, if the website failed or returned a different code, you’d see failed checks.

6. Slightly More Interesting Example (Hello World with Threshold)

Now, let’s add a threshold so the test “fails” if latency is too high.

Create another file: hello-with-threshold.js

notepad .\hello-with-threshold.js
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Paste:

import http from 'k6/http';
import { check, sleep } from 'k6';

export const options = {
  vus: 2,
  duration: '15s',
  thresholds: {
    // 95% of all requests must finish below 500ms
    http_req_duration: ['p(95) < 500'],
    // At least 99% of checks must pass
    checks: ['rate > 0.99'],
  },
};

export default function () {
  const res = http.get('https://test.k6.io');

  check(res, {
    'status is 200': (r) => r.status === 200,
  });

  sleep(1);
}
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Run it:

k6 run .\hello-with-threshold.js
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

At the end, you’ll see something like:

   checks................: 100.00% ✓ 30 ✗ 0
   http_req_duration.....: p(95)=180ms ...
   thresholds:
     * http_req_duration  p(95)<500       ✓  passed
     * checks             rate>0.99       ✓  passed
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

If you intentionally use a slow or broken URL, you might see thresholds marked as failed with ✗.

7. Running a Quick “Smoke Test” Style Hello World

If you just want to quickly confirm your script works (like a smoke test):

Create hello-smoke.js:

notepad .\hello-smoke.js
Code language: CSS (css)

Paste:

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

export const options = {
  vus: 1,
  iterations: 1, // run only once
};

export default function () {
  const res = http.get('https://test.k6.io');
  console.log(`Response status: ${res.status}`);
  sleep(1);
}
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Run:

k6 run .\hello-smoke.js
Code language: CSS (css)

You’ll see a log line:

INFO[0000] Response status: 200
Code language: CSS (css)

This is a super basic “Hello World” just to embed k6 in a CI step or script.

8. Typical Folder Structure for Your k6 Work

If you continue learning, you might organize like:

C:\k6-demo
 ├─ hello-world.js
 ├─ hello-with-threshold.js
 ├─ hello-smoke.js
 ├─ scenarios/
 │   ├─ basic-load.js
 │   ├─ spike-test.js
 ├─ data/
 │   └─ users.csv
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

9. Next Easy Steps After Hello World

Once this works, good next things to explore:

1. Increase load
   Change: vus: 10, duration: '30s',
2. Add multiple URLs
   Use group() blocks and multiple http.get calls.
3. Export results to JSON (for later analysis): k6 run --out json=results.json .\hello-world.js
4. Integrate with Grafana later (Prometheus or k6 Cloud), once you’re comfortable.

Rajesh Kumar

I’m a DevOps/SRE/DevSecOps/Cloud Expert passionate about sharing knowledge and experiences. I have worked at Cotocus. I share tech blog at DevOps School, travel stories at Holiday Landmark, stock market tips at Stocks Mantra, health and fitness guidance at My Medic Plus, product reviews at TrueReviewNow , and SEO strategies at Wizbrand.

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