Synthetic Monitoring using Scenarios ¶

With Blackfire, we achieve this by using Scenarios.

Scenarios are very useful because they test complete user interactions like logging in, browsing products, or checking out. They help you ensure the performance of multiple steps at once.

Here is a basic example of a scenario.

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In your .blackfire.yaml file, you can define multiple steps to visit different pages.

Behind the scenes, an open source web crawler called Blackfire Player does all the work. It'll trigger a full profile for each endpoint considered. For all profiles, the matching assertions are automatically evaluated.

The result of all the performance tests are gathered in a convenient view we call the Build Reports.

In a Build Report, you will find a convenient overview of the passing and failing tests, all the recommendations associated with each profile.

You can access a specific profile and start your investigation with one click As we use a web crawler, we can add expectations on top of the assertion you previously defined.

This could be a specific response code, some body content, or more advanced ones using the embedded DOM crawler.

Check the documentation to discover more possibilities.

Blackfire player lets you simulate all kinds of requests.

You can define the method of the request, attach a body to it, or specific headers.

You can also request to click on a specific link found in the new previous steps or submit a form. All those requests as well will be profiled.

You can define secrets like login credentials, securely in the Blackfire Build dashboard. This helps you test applications requiring user login

To go beyond, you can define variables with results from a previous test and start defining groups, which are reusable parts of scenarios you can later reassemble as Lego bricks.

You can also split your scenarios in multiple .bkf files, you can decide to test individually or combine them all.

At blackfire.io/validator, we provide a convenient validator for your .blackfire.yaml, and .bkf files to ensure they're all correctly formatted.

Scenarios allow you to automate regular checks on your application's performance.

They ensure your critical user journeys always perform well.

By continuously testing these scenarios, you prevent problems before users experience them.

Your next step is to create your first scenario. A good practice is to add or improve the scenarios every time you work on a feature.

You can secure your application even more by integrating these automated tests into your CI/CD pipelines.