parca-load

A load testing tool that continuously queries Parca instances.

Installation

go install github.com/parca-dev/parca-load@latest

or via container:

docker run ghcr.io/parca-dev/parca-load

How it works

The tool runs five query types in parallel at a configurable interval (default: 5s):

• ProfileTypes - discovers available profile types
• Labels - queries label names for each profile type
• Values - queries label values (if -values-for-labels is set)
• QueryRange - fetches profile series data
• Query (merge) - fetches merged flamegraph data

Each query type runs against all configured profile types, time ranges, and label selectors.

Metrics are exposed at http://<addr>/metrics (default: 127.0.0.1:7171).

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
-url	http://localhost:7070	Parca instance URL
-addr	127.0.0.1:7171	HTTP server address for metrics
-query-interval	5s	Interval between query rounds
-query-range	15m;12h;168h	Time ranges for queries (semicolon-separated)
-types	(auto-discover)	Profile types to query (semicolon-separated)
-labels	all	Label selectors for filtering (semicolon-separated)
-values-for-labels	(none)	Label names to query values for (semicolon-separated)
-token		Bearer token for authentication
-headers		Custom headers (key=value,key2=value2)
-client-timeout	10s	HTTP client timeout

Examples

# Basic usage with auto-discovered profile types
./parca-load -url=http://localhost:7070

# Specific profile types
./parca-load -url=http://localhost:7070 \
  -types='parca_agent:samples:count:cpu:nanoseconds:delta'

# Custom time ranges and label filtering
./parca-load -url=http://localhost:7070 \
  -query-range='1h;24h' \
  -labels='{job="api",env="dev"}'

# Query values for specific labels
./parca-load -url=http://localhost:7070 \
  -values-for-labels='job;namespace'

Profile type format: name:sample_type:sample_unit:period_type:period_unit[:delta]