Getting Started

Prerequisites

An OTLP-compatible backend (Jaeger, Grafana Cloud, etc.) or the OTel Collector

Installation

There are several ways to get a k6 binary with the OpenTelemetry output extension.

Option 1: Download a pre-built binary

Pre-built binaries are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows from the GitHub Releases page.

Platform	Architecture	Asset
Linux	amd64	`k6-linux-amd64`
Linux	arm64	`k6-linux-arm64`
macOS	arm64 (Apple Silicon)	`k6-darwin-arm64`
macOS	amd64 (Intel)	`k6-darwin-amd64`
Windows	amd64	`k6-windows-amd64.exe`

# Example: download the latest Linux amd64 binary
curl -LO https://github.com/henrikrexed/henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry/releases/latest/download/k6-linux-amd64
chmod +x k6-linux-amd64
mv k6-linux-amd64 k6

Option 2: Use the Docker image

A multi-arch Docker image (linux/amd64 and linux/arm64) is published to GitHub Container Registry on every release.

# Pull the latest image
docker pull ghcr.io/henrikrexed/henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry:latest

# Run a test
docker run --rm \
  -e K6_OTEL_GRPC_EXPORTER_INSECURE=true \
  -e K6_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=host.docker.internal:4317 \
  -v $(pwd)/test.js:/home/k6/test.js \
  ghcr.io/henrikrexed/henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry:latest \
  run --out opentelemetry /home/k6/test.js

You can also pin to a specific version tag (e.g., ghcr.io/henrikrexed/henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry:0.0.1).

Option 3: Build with xk6

If you need to combine this extension with other k6 extensions, use xk6:

Prerequisites: Go 1.24+, xk6 (go install go.k6.io/xk6/cmd/xk6@latest)

xk6 build latest --with github.com/henrikrexed/henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry

This produces a k6 binary with the extension built in.

Option 4: Build from source

git clone https://github.com/henrikrexed/henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry.git
cd henrikrexed-xk6-output-opentelemetry
make build

Run

# Start a local collector (e.g., with Jaeger)
docker run -d --name jaeger \
  -p 16686:16686 -p 4317:4317 \
  jaegertracing/all-in-one:1.56

# Run k6 with OTel output
K6_OTEL_GRPC_EXPORTER_INSECURE=true \
K6_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=localhost:4317 \
./k6 run --out opentelemetry test.js

Open http://localhost:16686 to see traces in Jaeger.

Verify

The k6 output line should show:

opentelemetry (grpc localhost:4317 [traces+metrics+baggage])