Grafana Cloud Testing

Docs: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/testing/

Three pillars: external probing (Synthetic Monitoring), load testing (k6 Cloud), real-user monitoring (Faro).

Prerequisites

Grafana Cloud stack
Synthetic Monitoring: SM access token (sm:write)
k6 Cloud: a Grafana Cloud k6 token + projectID
Faro: a Faro app + write-token from Frontend Observability → Apps

Common Workflows

1. Create + verify a Synthetic HTTP check

# 1. Create the check (full payload in references/synthetic.md)
curl -X POST https://synthetic-monitoring-api.grafana.net/sm/checks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <sm-token>" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"job":"website","target":"https://example.com","frequency":60000,"timeout":15000,
       "enabled":true,"probes":[1,5,10],
       "settings":{"http":{"method":"GET","validStatusCodes":[200]}}}'

# 2. List checks — confirm it exists and is enabled
curl -s https://synthetic-monitoring-api.grafana.net/sm/checks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <sm-token>" | jq '.[] | select(.job=="website")'

# 3. Verify probe_success arrived (wait ~60s for the first run)
#    In Grafana Explore on the synthetic metrics datasource:
#      probe_success{job="website"}
#    Expect 1 from each probe in `probes:[1,5,10]`.
#
# Rollback: DELETE /sm/checks/<id> or set `"enabled": false`.

See references/synthetic.md for all check types, PromQL queries, and alert rules.

2. Run a k6 cloud load test

# 1. Authenticate once
k6 cloud login --token <grafana-cloud-k6-token>

# 2. Validate the script locally first (smoke run, no cloud cost)
k6 run --vus 1 --duration 30s script.js

# 3. Launch in cloud
k6 cloud script.js
# → URL of the run; thresholds (p95<500ms, error<1%) decide pass/fail.

# 4. Verify in CI — exit code 0 = thresholds passed, 99 = threshold failed.
echo $?

Full script + scenarios + CI YAML: references/k6-and-faro.md.

3. Instrument a frontend with Faro

# 1. Install
npm install @grafana/faro-web-sdk @grafana/faro-web-tracing

// 2. initializeFaro({ url, apiKey, app, instrumentations }) — see references/k6-and-faro.md
// 3. Push a test event so we have something to look for:
faro.api.pushEvent('faro_smoketest', { ts: Date.now().toString() });

# 4. Verify the collector accepted it (browser DevTools → Network)
#    POST to /collect should return 202. If 401 — apiKey mismatch.

# 5. Verify in Grafana
#    - Frontend Observability → your app → Sessions: should show your session
#    - Explore on Loki: `{kind="event"} |= "faro_smoketest"`
#    - For traces: filter by `service.name="my-frontend"` in Tempo

Troubleshooting

Synthetic check stuck at probe_success=0 → check probe_*_duration_seconds for the failing stage; the probe-region label tells you which prober errored
k6 cloud run "ABORTED_THRESHOLD" → a threshold tripped; inspect the run page to see which one
Faro events not landing → check the browser network call to /collect returns 202; common cause is wrong apiKey or url (must match the FE Observability app)

References

For deep authoring of Synthetic Monitoring scripted (k6) and browser checks — execution model, assertions, secrets, API/Terraform payloads — see the synthetic-monitoring-checks skill
references/synthetic.md — Synthetic Monitoring essentials: check types, key PromQL metrics, alert rules
references/synthetic-monitoring.md — deep dive: full API for check CRUD, probe selection, scripted (k6) checks, multi-step browser checks
references/k6-and-faro.md — k6 cloud script + Faro Web SDK init snippets for end-to-end testing
references/k6-cloud.md — deep dive: k6 cloud config (project + load zones + thresholds), CI integration, run analysis

testing