Run extensions using Binary Provisioning

Caution
This is an experimental feature. Breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available.

k6 supports extensions as a way of extending k6 native functionality, and support a wider variety of use cases.

Using k6 with extensions locally requires users to build a custom k6 binary that includes the extension, which can then be used to run a test script. With the Binary Provisioning feature, Grafana Cloud k6 users can run tests with a limited set of extensions, without having to manually build a k6 binary.

The archive and inspect commands also support Binary Provisioning to allow creating archives for Grafana Cloud.

Before you begin

To use Binary Provisioning, you’ll need:

k6 v1.0 or greater installed on your machine.
A Grafana Cloud account.

Set the Binary Provsioning environment flag

To enable Binary Provisioning, you must set the K6_BINARY_PROVISIONING environment variable to true:

export K6_BINARY_PROVISIONING=true

export K6_BINARY_PROVISIONING=true

$Env:K6_BINARY_PROVISIONING = "true"

Log in to Grafana Cloud

To use Binary Provisioning, you must authenticate to Grafana Cloud using the k6 cloud login command:

k6 cloud login --token <API_TOKEN>

Run a test

After setting the K6_BINARY_PROVISIONING environment variable and logging in to Grafana Cloud, you can run a test using the k6 cloud run command:

k6 cloud run --local-execution script.js

k6 cloud run --local-execution --quiet script.js

k6.exe cloud run --local-execution --quiet script.js

k6.exe cloud run --local-execution --quiet script.js

As an example, you can save this script to your machine and run it in Grafana Cloud. It uses the xk6-faker extension to generate a random first name.

import faker from 'k6/x/faker';

export default function () {
  console.log(faker.person.firstName());
}

You should see an output similar to the following:

INFO[0000] The current k6 binary doesn't satisfy all dependencies, it is required to provision a custom binary.  deps="k6/x/faker*"
INFO[0000] A new k6 binary has been provisioned with version(s): k6:v1.0.0 k6/x/faker:v0.4.3
time="2025-04-24T12:59:24+02:00" level=info msg=Zelma source=console


    TOTAL RESULTS

    EXECUTION
    iteration_duration.....................: avg=759.06µs min=759.06µs med=759.06µs max=759.06µs p(90)=759.06µs p(95)=759.06µs
    iterations.............................: 1   1061.414505/s

    NETWORK
    data_received..........................: 0 B 0 B/s
    data_sent..............................: 0 B 0 B/s

The output includes information about which dependencies were detected, and the version for the dependencies used to run the test.

Limitations

Only extensions supported in Grafana Cloud are supported.
Output extensions are not supported.
Running scripts from stdin is not supported.
Only files with extensions .js, .ts or .tar can be used. Other extensions will not invoke the Binary Provisioning mechanism.