Taurus is an open source test automation tool that extends and abstracts leading open source tools including JMeter, Gatling, Locust.io, The Grinder, JUnit, Selenium, and more. Taurus provides a simple way to create, run, and analyze performance tests.

Taurus can consume configuration files written in JSON or YAML languages, which are very human-readable. For instance, a simple load test with 10 concurrent users, a ramp-up time of 1 minute, a duration of 2.5 minutes and hitting the site blazedemo.com with HTTP GET requests will look as simple as:

execution:
  concurrency: 10
  hold-for: 2m30s
  ramp-up: 1m
  scenario: Thread Group

scenarios:
  Thread Group:
    requests:
    - label: blazedemo
      method: GET
      url: http://blazedemo.com/

As you can see, it’s only eleven lines of simple human-readable language that represents a (more or less) complete load scenario. It’s really simple to use. 

This is the whole idea of Taurus: to provide a unified, simplified way of configuring and running automated tests, then present the results in the most effective form. To learn more about Taurus, first check out Taurus's Beginner's Course, then for more information about Taurus's configuration syntax, visit the Taurus Tool Documentation.

• Creating a New Taurus Test
• Upload a YAML/JSON Script with Test Assets
• Ready to Run!

Creating a New Taurus Test in BlazeMeter

You can start creating your Taurus test in the BlazeMeter GUI by clicking on the Perfomance section, then the "Create Test" button on the top navigation bar, then clicking the "Performance Test" button, as detailed in our New Test Create Screen guide (also, see the screenshot below):

CAUTION!  Though Taurus supports Selenium scripts, we do not recommend running Selenium tests as performance tests, as explained in our KB article Can I use Selenium for Load Testing?  We recommend using Selenium tests for functional testing instead, as detailed in our guide Creating a GUI Functional Test.

Upload a YAML/JSON Script with Test Assets

At the top of the screen, you'll find a central location to upload your YAML/JSON script. Here, you can either click the "+" button to browse to your script or drag the script from your desktop to the "+" button. 

Note: Taurus' included-configs setting is not supported in the Blazemeter cloud.  If your YAML references a secondary YAML via included-configs for additional configuration settings, please merge all settings into one YAML before uploading your test.

Under the 'Configuration Preview', you will see the YAML/JSON code of the file you uploaded.

If you're running a JMeter test with Taurus and have uploaded a CSV file with your script, then the option to "split CSV files" appears below the script preview. You may check this box to enable the feature, which you can learn more about here.

There are additional options you can add to your test configuration, and we have a detailed guide on each topic, including:

• Failure Criteria
• End User Experience Monitoring
• APM Integration
• DNS Override
• Network Emulation

All done? Now just give it a name and you're Taurus test is ready to go!

Note: An alternative method is to call Taurus from the command line, then have the test run in BlazeMeter automatically by adding "provisioning: cloud" to the configuration. This method doesn't even require a web browser! To learn more about this alternative method, check out the Taurus documentation on the topic here. 

Ready to Run!

You can now either run the test or run a debug of the test (to learn more about the debug option, please refer to this article).

Once again, make sure you name your test, save it, and then you're ready to go! Great! You've now successfully set up your Taurus test. Ready to move on to the next step? Read our article on Running BlazeMeter Tests to find out how.

Want to learn more about running a Taurus tests with open source tools? View our on-demand webcast How to Stop Waiting & Start Testing With Open Source Tools.