GitLab has announced general availability of a performance tool, which can be used to “verify the performance of any GitLab environment”.

The GitLab Performance Tool (GTP) is built on the k6 open source load and performance regression testing tool and provides a “broad test suite that comes out-of-the-box and covers various endpoints across the GitLab product with added ability to add your own custom tests as desired”.

Standard tests include API endpoint, git-related and web page tests. The standard setup also contains “standalone test scenarios” as well as quarantined tests, “because of some ongoing issue with endpoint or test itself.”

Test runs can be customised, with options such as “specifying desired GitLab environment data or defining what throughput to use with default examples given.” Tests can also be run sequentially, with thresholds for success based on time to first byte, throughput and “successful responses”.

According to GitLab, ”We use the GPT in several automated GitLab CI pipelines for quick feedback on how GitLab is performing. The CI pipelines typically run daily or weekly against our reference architecture environments, which themselves are running on the latest pre-release code.”

The results of these tests are published by GitLab, “in line with our transparency value”.

The company said it intended to expand the tool to cover “more of GitLab’s features and entry points (API, Web, Git)” as well broadening its work on “reference architectures, test data, and user behavior patterns to be as representative and realistic as possible”.

Users will no doubt lap-up the chance to test their environments – under their own terms. The vendor ran into trouble last year when it announced plans to implement telemetry across its platform, based on  “additional JavaScript snippets…that will interact with both GitLab and possibly third-party SaaS telemetry services”. But users revolted, and the scheme was shelved after less than a fortnight in operation.