MicroChaos CLI Load Tester

v4.0.0 — "The Headless Horseman"

Welcome to MicroChaos—a precision-built WP-CLI load testing tool forged in the fires of real-world WordPress hosting constraints.

When external load testing tools are blocked, when rate limits make your bots cry, and when SSH feels like a locked door... MicroChaos lets you stress test like a ninja from the inside.

Built for staging environments like Pressable, MicroChaos simulates traffic at scale—warm or cold cache, anonymous or authenticated, fast bursts or slow burns.

Current Bugs

No known bugs at this time.

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🎯 Purpose

• 🔐 Run realistic load tests inside WordPress with zero external traffic
• 🧠 Simulate logged-in users, WooCommerce flows, REST endpoints, and custom paths
• 🧰 Profile caching, resource usage, and performance regressions from the CLI
• 🦇 Built for staging, QA, support engineers, TAMs, and performance-hungry devs

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🆕 What's New in v4.0.0 "The Headless Horseman"

v4.0.0 brings first-class headless WordPress support for testing GraphQL endpoints.

Headless WordPress Testing

• --graphql shorthand - Sets method=POST and endpoint=/graphql automatically
• --user-agent flag - Custom User-Agent for Pressable headless apps
• GraphQL error detection - Automatically detects errors in 200 OK responses
• Comprehensive guide - Full workflow for headless WordPress capacity planning

New Output

Per-request GraphQL error reporting:

-> 200 in 0.45s [GQL errors: 1]

Summary with GraphQL error tracking:

Success: 95 | HTTP Errors: 0 | GraphQL Errors: 5 | Error Rate: 5%

Why "The Headless Horseman"?

Because testing a headless site without proper load testing is like Ichabod Crane riding through Sleepy Hollow without a lantern. MicroChaos is your lantern.

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📜 What's New in v3.0.0

Simplified & Focused

v3.0.0 is a radical simplification. We removed features that didn't work reliably on Pressable (parallel testing, progressive mode) and focused on what actually delivers value:

• 52% smaller codebase - Removed 2,590 lines of non-functional code
• Single command - wp microchaos loadtest does everything
• Serial execution optimized - Works perfectly within Pressable's loopback rate limits

New Features

• Execution Metrics - Every test now reports:
  • Requests per second (RPS) achieved
  • Capacity projections (hourly/daily/monthly)
  • Test timestamps (human-readable + ISO 8601)
  • Total duration with formatted display

Under the Hood

• 100% type hints - All public methods have PHP 8.2+ type declarations
• Testable architecture - Logger interface enables unit testing without WordPress
• 61 unit tests - Core components tested in 14ms without WordPress runtime
• Clean separation - Thin CLI wrapper (63 lines) + LoadTestOrchestrator (656 lines)

Removed Features

These features were removed because they don't work on Pressable due to loopback rate limiting:

• ❌ wp microchaos parallel - Parallel test execution
• ❌ wp microchaos progressive - Progressive load testing
• ❌ --concurrency flag - True concurrent requests

If you need these features, use an external load testing tool (k6, Artillery, etc.) that can hit your site from outside.

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📦 Installation

Standard Installation

1. Copy the file microchaos-cli.php from the dist directory to wp-content/mu-plugins/ on your site.
2. Make sure WP-CLI is available in your environment.
3. You're ready to chaos!

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🚨 Platform Considerations (Pressable & Managed Hosts)

MicroChaos is built specifically for Pressable and similar managed WordPress hosts where loopback requests are rate-limited (~10 concurrent max). The tool uses serial execution which works perfectly within these constraints.

Understanding the --burst Flag

The --burst flag controls how many sequential requests fire before pausing (via --delay). This is NOT concurrency—it's throughput control.

Choosing burst values:

Site Speed	Recommended Burst	Reasoning
Fast (<100ms)	200-500	High throughput, quick completion
Medium (100-500ms)	50-200	Balance throughput vs duration
Slow (>500ms)	20-50	Avoid duration overshoot

⚠️ Duration Overshoot Warning: In duration-based tests (--duration=X), the current burst always completes before the test stops. A 1-minute test with --burst=500 on a slow site (1s per request) could run 8+ minutes. Start conservative, scale up.

The Essential Flag Combo

For capacity planning, always combine these three:

--resource-logging --resource-trends --cache-headers

• resource-logging: Memory/CPU per burst (are we hitting limits?)
• resource-trends: Memory over time (detecting leaks)
• cache-headers: Pressable cache behavior (x-ac, x-nananana)

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📊 Capacity Planning Guide

This is how MicroChaos is actually used for Pressable capacity audits.

The 3-Phase Workflow

Phase 1: Baseline Discovery

Establish how the site performs under known conditions:

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=5 --burst=50 \
  --warm-cache --resource-logging --cache-headers \
  --save-baseline=initial

What you're measuring: Warm cache response times, baseline memory usage, cache hit rates.

Phase 2: Sustained Load Testing

Simulate realistic traffic over time to find degradation:

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=10 --burst=100 \
  --resource-logging --resource-trends --cache-headers

What you're looking for:

• Does RPS stay stable or decline?
• Does memory climb (leak) or stay flat?
• What's the cache HIT/MISS ratio under load?

Phase 3: Multi-Endpoint Rotation

Test realistic user flows across the site:

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoints=home,shop,cart,checkout \
  --duration=10 --burst=100 --rotation-mode=serial \
  --resource-logging --resource-trends --cache-headers

Why this matters: Single-endpoint tests miss bottlenecks. Real users hit multiple paths, triggering different code, queries, and cache patterns.

Interpreting Results

Execution Metrics (Capacity)

Throughput: 4.74 RPS
Capacity: 17,064/hour | 409,536/day | 12.3M/month

Decision logic:

• Compare achieved RPS to traffic requirements
• If target is 10 RPS and you hit 4.7 RPS → need optimization or scaling
• Capacity projections show monthly headroom

Resource Trends (Stability)

Memory Trend: ↑12.3% over test duration
Pattern: Moderate growth

Trend	Meaning	Action
Flat (±5%)	Stable, safe for sustained load	✅ Good to go
Climbing (5-15%)	Possible leak or buffer growth	⚠️ Investigate plugins
Steep climb (>15%)	Memory leak, will eventually crash	🚨 Fix before scaling

Cache Headers (Efficiency)

Edge Cache (x-ac): HIT 20% | STALE 50% | UPDATING 30%
Batcache (x-nananana): HIT 40% | MISS 60%

Pattern	Meaning	Action
High HIT %	Cache working well	✅ Efficient
High STALE %	Cache invalidating too often	Check invalidation logic
High MISS %	Database getting hammered	Review caching strategy

Common Audit Scenarios

"Site is slow during peak hours"

# Warm cache baseline
wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=5 --burst=50 \
  --warm-cache --resource-logging --cache-headers --save-baseline=warm

# Cold cache comparison (worst case)
wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=5 --burst=50 \
  --flush-between --resource-logging --cache-headers --compare-baseline=warm

Look for: Big gap between warm/cold = cache is critical. Small gap = cache isn't helping much.

"How many users can we handle?"

# Start conservative
wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=5 --burst=50 \
  --resource-logging --auto-thresholds

# Scale up incrementally
wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=10 --burst=100 \
  --resource-logging --use-thresholds=default

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=10 --burst=200 \
  --resource-logging --use-thresholds=default

Find the breaking point: Where does RPS plateau? Where does memory peak? That's your capacity ceiling.

"WooCommerce checkout is slow"

# Test checkout as authenticated user
wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=checkout --duration=10 --burst=50 \
  --auth=customer@example.com \
  --resource-logging --resource-trends --cache-headers --save-baseline=checkout

# Compare to homepage (same auth)
wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=10 --burst=50 \
  --auth=customer@example.com \
  --resource-logging --compare-baseline=checkout

Look for: Checkout 5-10x slower than home = WooCommerce overhead, plugin hooks, or external API calls.

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🤖 Headless WordPress Testing Guide

"A headless site without load testing is like Ichabod Crane without a lantern—stumbling through Sleepy Hollow hoping the horseman doesn't catch you."

MicroChaos v4.0.0 adds first-class support for headless WordPress load testing via GraphQL. This guide walks you through testing decoupled architectures where a frontend (Next.js, Nuxt, Gatsby, etc.) consumes WordPress data via WPGraphQL.

Prerequisites

Before running headless load tests, ensure:

Requirement	How to Verify
WPGraphQL installed	wp plugin list \| grep wp-graphql or visit /graphql in browser
MicroChaos deployed	wp microchaos --help returns command info
Test content exists	Posts, pages, products—whatever your frontend queries
SSH access	You're running MicroChaos from inside WordPress via WP-CLI

For Pressable headless sites:

• Custom User-Agent is required (format: your-app-name/1.0)
• Use the standard /graphql endpoint (rate limit exception exists)

The 3-Phase Headless Workflow

Phase 1: Verify GraphQL is Working

Before load testing, confirm the endpoint responds correctly:

# Single request sanity check
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ __typename }"}' \
  --count=1

Expected: HTTP 200, no GraphQL errors. If you see [GQL errors: 1], your query has issues.

Phase 2: Baseline Your Queries

Test your actual frontend queries under controlled conditions:

# Test your real query with resource monitoring
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts(first: 10) { nodes { id title slug content featuredImage { node { sourceUrl } } } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=my-frontend/1.0 \
  --count=50 --cache-headers --resource-logging \
  --save-baseline=posts-query

What you're measuring:

• Response times for your actual query complexity
• Memory usage on WordPress backend
• Cache behavior (POST = BYPASS, GET = cacheable)

Phase 3: Sustained Load Testing

Simulate real frontend traffic patterns:

# 10-minute sustained load test
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts(first: 10) { nodes { id title slug } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=my-frontend/1.0 \
  --duration=10 --burst=20 \
  --resource-logging --resource-trends --cache-headers

What you're looking for:

• Does RPS stay stable or decline over time?
• Does memory climb (potential leak) or stay flat?
• Are GraphQL errors appearing under load?

JWT Authentication for Protected Queries

Many headless setups use JWT tokens for authenticated GraphQL queries. Here's the workflow:

Step 1: Get a JWT Token

Using WPGraphQL JWT Authentication plugin:

# Get token via mutation (run this manually first)
curl -X POST https://your-site.com/graphql \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"mutation { login(input: {username: \"admin\", password: \"password\"}) { authToken refreshToken } }"}'

Response:

{"data":{"login":{"authToken":"eyJ0eXAi...","refreshToken":"..."}}}

Step 2: Use Token in MicroChaos

wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ viewer { name email } }"}' \
  --header="Authorization=Bearer eyJ0eXAi..." \
  --user-agent=my-frontend/1.0 \
  --count=50

Note: JWT tokens expire. For long-duration tests, use a fresh token or test unauthenticated queries.

Real-World Query Examples

Simple Post List (Blog Frontend)

wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts(first: 10) { nodes { id title slug excerpt date } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=blog-frontend/1.0 \
  --count=100 --cache-headers

WooCommerce Products (E-commerce Frontend)

wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ products(first: 20) { nodes { id name slug ... on SimpleProduct { price regularPrice } image { sourceUrl } } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=shop-frontend/1.0 \
  --count=100 --resource-logging

Complex Nested Query (Heavy Load)

wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts(first: 5) { nodes { id title author { node { name posts(first: 3) { nodes { title } } } } categories { nodes { name posts(first: 3) { nodes { title } } } } } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=complex-frontend/1.0 \
  --count=50 --resource-logging --resource-trends

Warning: Deeply nested queries can be expensive. Watch memory usage carefully.

Interpreting Headless Results

What "Good" Looks Like

Metric	Good	Warning	Critical
Response Time	<200ms	200-500ms	>500ms
GraphQL Errors	0	1-5%	>5%
Memory Growth	Flat (±5%)	5-15% climb	>15% climb
Cache HITs (GET)	>80%	50-80%	<50%

Red Flags to Watch For

Symptom	Likely Cause	Action
[GQL errors: N] appearing	Query syntax issue or schema mismatch	Fix query before load testing
Response times climbing over duration	Memory pressure or connection pooling	Check --resource-trends output
100% BYPASS on all requests	Using POST (expected) or cache misconfigured	Use GET for cacheable queries
Memory growing >20% over test	Potential memory leak in resolver	Profile WPGraphQL resolvers

POST vs GET: Cache Strategy

POST requests (default with --graphql):

• Always bypass Pressable Edge Cache
• Every request hits PHP/WordPress
• Use for: mutations, authenticated queries, cache-busting tests

GET requests (with --method=GET):

• Can be cached by Edge Cache (with WPGraphQL Smart Cache)
• Cache HITs are ~30ms vs ~450ms uncached
• Use for: public queries, production traffic simulation

# Test cache effectiveness with GET
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql --method=GET \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts { nodes { title } } }"}' \
  --count=50 --cache-headers

Look for: First few requests MISS, then HITs. If all MISS, Smart Cache may not be configured.

Pressable-Specific Considerations

1. User-Agent Required: Pressable headless apps need a custom UA for rate limit exceptions
2. Standard /graphql Path: Non-standard paths may be rate limited
3. Edge Cache for GET: Works with WPGraphQL Smart Cache plugin
4. Loopback Limits: MicroChaos uses serial requests (~10 concurrent max)

# Full Pressable headless test with all the trimmings
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts(first: 10) { nodes { title slug } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=my-nextjs-app/1.0 \
  --duration=5 --burst=50 \
  --resource-logging --resource-trends --cache-headers \
  --save-baseline=headless-baseline

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🏗️ Architecture

MicroChaos features a modular component-based architecture with clean separation of concerns:

microchaos/
├── bootstrap.php                    # Component loader (v3.0.0)
└── core/
    ├── interfaces/
    │   ├── logger.php               # Logger interface (testability)
    │   └── baseline-storage.php     # Storage abstraction
    ├── logging/
    │   ├── wp-cli-logger.php        # Production logger
    │   └── null-logger.php          # Test logger
    ├── storage/
    │   └── transient-baseline-storage.php
    ├── orchestrators/
    │   └── loadtest-orchestrator.php  # Test execution (656 lines)
    ├── commands.php                 # Thin WP-CLI wrapper (63 lines)
    ├── log.php                      # Static logger facade
    ├── constants.php                # Centralized constants
    ├── authentication-manager.php   # Auth utilities (8 static methods)
    ├── request-generator.php        # HTTP request management
    ├── cache-analyzer.php           # Cache header analysis
    ├── resource-monitor.php         # System resource tracking
    ├── reporting-engine.php         # Results and reporting
    ├── integration-logger.php       # External monitoring
    └── thresholds.php               # Thresholds and visualization

Key Design Decisions:

• Thin CLI wrapper: commands.php is just 63 lines - all logic lives in LoadTestOrchestrator
• Interface-based logging: Swap WP_CLI_Logger for Null_Logger in tests
• 100% type hints: All public methods have PHP 8.2+ type declarations
• 61 unit tests: Pure PHP components tested without WordPress runtime

🔄 Build Process

MicroChaos uses a build system that compiles the modular version into a single-file distribution:

build.js                   # Node.js build script
dist/                      # Generated distribution files
└── microchaos-cli.php     # Compiled single-file version (~123 KB)

Building the Single-File Version

If you've made changes to the modular components and want to rebuild the single-file version:

# Make sure you have Node.js installed
node build.js

This will generate a fresh single-file version in the dist/ directory, ready for distribution. The build script:

1. Extracts all component classes
2. Combines them into a single file
3. Maintains proper WP-CLI registration
4. Preserves backward compatibility

Note: Always develop in the modular version, then build for distribution. The single-file version is generated automatically and should not be edited directly.

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🛠 Usage

1. Decide the real-world traffic scenario you need to test (e.g., 20 concurrent hits sustained, or a daily average of 30 hits/second at peak).
2. Run the loopback test with at least 2-3x those numbers to see if resource usage climbs to a point of concern.
3. Watch server-level metrics (PHP error logs, memory usage, CPU load) to see if you're hitting resource ceilings.

Standard Load Testing

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=100

Or go wild:

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=checkout --count=50 --auth=admin@example.com --cache-headers --resource-logging

🔧 CLI Options

Available Commands

• wp microchaos loadtest Run a load test with various options

Basic Options (loadtest)

• --endpoint=<slug> home, shop, cart, checkout, or custom:/my-path
• --endpoints=<endpoint-list> Comma-separated list of endpoints to rotate through
• --count=<n> Total requests to send (default: 100)
• --duration=<minutes> Run test for specified duration instead of fixed request count
• --burst=<n> Requests per burst (default: 10)
• --delay=<seconds> Delay between bursts (default: 2)

Request Configuration

• --method=<method> HTTP method to use (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.)
• --body=<data> POST/PUT body (string, JSON, or file:path.json)
• --auth=<email> Run as a specific logged-in user
• --multi-auth=<email1,email2> Rotate across multiple users
• --cookie=<name=value> Set custom cookie(s), comma-separated for multiple
• --header=<name=value> Set custom HTTP headers, comma-separated for multiple
• --user-agent=<string> Custom User-Agent header (required for Pressable headless apps)
• --graphql Shorthand for GraphQL testing (sets method=POST, endpoint=/graphql)

Test Behavior

• --warm-cache Prime the cache before testing
• --flush-between Flush cache before each burst
• --log-to=<relative path> Log results to file under wp-content/
• --rotation-mode=<mode> Control endpoint rotation (serial, random)
• --rampup Gradually increase burst size to simulate organic load

Monitoring & Reporting

• --resource-logging Print memory and CPU usage during test
• --resource-trends Track and analyze resource usage trends over time to detect memory leaks
• --cache-headers Parse Pressable-specific cache headers (x-ac, x-nananana) and summarize cache behavior
• --save-baseline=<n> Save results as a baseline for future comparisons
• --compare-baseline=<n> Compare results with a saved baseline
• --monitoring-integration Enable external monitoring integration via PHP error log
• --monitoring-test-id=<id> Specify custom test ID for monitoring integration

Threshold Calibration

• --auto-thresholds Automatically calibrate thresholds based on test results
• --auto-thresholds-profile=<name> Profile name to save calibrated thresholds (default: 'default')
• --use-thresholds=<profile> Use previously saved thresholds for reporting

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💡 Examples

Load Testing Examples

Load test the homepage with cache warmup and log output

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=100 --warm-cache --log-to=uploads/home-log.txt

Test multiple endpoints with random rotation

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoints=home,shop,cart,checkout --count=100 --rotation-mode=random

Add custom cookies to break caching

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=50 --cookie="session_id=123,test_variation=B"

Add custom HTTP headers to requests

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=50 --header="X-Test=true,Authorization=Bearer token123"

Simulate real users hitting checkout

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=checkout --count=25 --auth=admin@example.com

Hit a REST API endpoint with JSON from file

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=custom:/wp-json/api/v1/orders --method=POST --body=file:data/orders.json

Ramp-up traffic slowly over time

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=shop --count=100 --rampup

Save test results as a baseline for future comparison

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=100 --save-baseline=homepage

Compare with previously saved baseline

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=100 --compare-baseline=homepage

Run a test for a specific duration instead of request count

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=5 --burst=15 --resource-logging

Run a test with trend analysis to detect potential memory leaks

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --duration=10 --resource-logging --resource-trends

Auto-calibrate thresholds based on the site's current performance

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=50 --auto-thresholds

Run a test with previously calibrated thresholds

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=100 --use-thresholds=homepage

Run test with monitoring integration enabled for external metrics collection

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=50 --monitoring-integration

Cache Header Analysis (Pressable)

Analyze Pressable's cache behavior with detailed per-request and summary reporting

wp microchaos loadtest --endpoint=home --count=50 --cache-headers --warm-cache

Example per-request output:

-> 200 in 0.032s [x-ac: 3.dca_atomic_dca STALE] [x-nananana: MISS]
-> 200 in 0.024s [x-ac: 3.dca_atomic_dca UPDATING] [x-nananana: HIT]

Example cache summary:

📦 Pressable Cache Header Summary:
   🌐 Edge Cache (x-ac):
     3.dca_atomic_dca STALE: 25 (50.0%)
     3.dca_atomic_dca UPDATING: 15 (30.0%)
     3.dca_atomic_dca HIT: 10 (20.0%)

   🦇 Batcache (x-nananana):
     MISS: 30 (60.0%)
     HIT: 20 (40.0%)

GraphQL / Headless WordPress

Quick examples for headless WordPress testing. See the full Headless WordPress Testing Guide for complete workflows, JWT authentication, and best practices.

# Basic GraphQL test
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql --body='{"query":"{ posts { nodes { title } } }"}' --count=100

# With User-Agent (required for Pressable headless)
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql \
  --body='{"query":"{ posts { nodes { title } } }"}' \
  --user-agent=my-frontend/1.0 \
  --count=50 --cache-headers

# Cacheable GET query
wp microchaos loadtest --graphql --method=GET --count=50 --cache-headers

GraphQL errors are automatically detected—even in HTTP 200 responses:

-> 200 in 0.45s [GQL errors: 1]
Success: 0 | HTTP Errors: 0 | GraphQL Errors: 3 | Error Rate: 100%

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📊 What You Get

🟢 Per-Request Log Output

-> 200 in 0.0296s [EDGE_UPDATING] x-ac:3.dca_atomic_dca UPDATING
-> 200 in 0.0303s [EDGE_STALE] x-ac:3.dca _atomic_dca STALE

Each request is timestamped, status-coded, cache-labeled, and readable at a glance.

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📈 Load Summary

📊 Load Test Summary:
   Total Requests: 10
   Success: 10 | Errors: 0 | Error Rate: 0%
   Avg Time: 0.0331s | Median: 0.0296s
   Fastest: 0.0278s | Slowest: 0.0567s

   Response Time Distribution:
   0.03s - 0.04s [██████████████████████████████] 8
   0.04s - 0.05s [█████] 1
   0.05s - 0.06s [█████] 1

---

💻 Resource Usage (with --resource-logging)

📊 Resource Utilization Summary:
   Memory Usage: Avg: 118.34 MB, Median: 118.34 MB, Min: 96.45 MB, Max: 127.89 MB
   Peak Memory: Avg: 118.76 MB, Median: 118.76 MB, Min: 102.32 MB, Max: 129.15 MB
   CPU Time (User): Avg: 1.01s, Median: 1.01s, Min: 0.65s, Max: 1.45s
   CPU Time (System): Avg: 0.33s, Median: 0.33s, Min: 0.12s, Max: 0.54s

   Memory Usage (MB):
   Memory     [████████████████████████████████] 118.34
   Peak       [████████████████████████████████████] 118.76
   MaxMem     [██████████████████████████████████████████████] 127.89
   MaxPeak    [███████████████████████████████████████████████] 129.15

---

📈 Resource Trend Analysis (with --resource-trends)

📈 Resource Trend Analysis:
   Data Points: 25 over 120.45 seconds
   Memory Usage: ↑12.3% over test duration
   Pattern: Moderate growth
   Peak Memory: ↑8.7% over test duration
   Pattern: Stabilizing

   Memory Usage Trend (MB over time):
     127.5 ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
     124.2 │                                                •••---------│
     121.8 │                                         ••----•            │
     119.5 │                                    •----                   │
     117.1 │                            ••-----•                        │
     114.8 │                       ••--•                                │
     112.4 │                 ••---•                                     │
     110.1 │             •--•                                           │
     107.8 │        •---•                                               │
     105.4 │  •••--•                                                    │
     103.1 │-•                                                          │
      10.0 └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
       0.1     30.1     60.2    90.2

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📦 Cache Header Summary (with --cache-headers)

📦 Pressable Cache Header Summary:
   🌐 Edge Cache (x-ac):
     3.dca_atomic_dca STALE: 3 (30.0%)
     3.dca_atomic_dca UPDATING: 7 (70.0%)

   🦇 Batcache (x-nananana):
     MISS: 6 (60.0%)
     HIT: 4 (40.0%)

   ⏲ Average Cache Age: 42.5 seconds

Parsed and summarized directly from Pressable-specific HTTP response headers—no deep instrumentation required.

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🔄 Baseline Comparison

📊 Load Test Summary:
   Total Requests: 10
   Success: 10 | Errors: 0 | Error Rate: 0%
   Avg Time: 0.0254s | Median: 0.0238s
   Fastest: 0.0212s | Slowest: 0.0387s

   Comparison to Baseline:
   - Avg: ↓23.5% vs 0.0331s
   - Median: ↓19.6% vs 0.0296s

Track performance improvements or regressions across changes.

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🧠 Design Philosophy

"Improvisation > Perfection. Paradox is fuel."

Test sideways. Wear lab goggles. Hit the endpoints like they owe you money and answers.

• ⚡ Internal-only, real-world load generation
• 🧬 Built for performance discovery and observability
• 🤝 Friendly for TAMs, support engineers, and even devs ;)

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🛠 Roadmap

Phase 4: GraphQL & Headless WordPress ✅ Complete

MicroChaos now supports GraphQL endpoint testing for headless WordPress:

• ✅ --graphql shorthand - Sets method=POST and endpoint=/graphql automatically
• ✅ --user-agent flag - Custom User-Agent required for Pressable headless apps
• ✅ Override support - Combine with --method=GET for cacheable queries
• ✅ Documented Pressable behavior - POST=BYPASS, GET=cacheable
• ✅ GraphQL error detection - Automatically detect and report errors in GraphQL responses

Future Ideas

• Advanced visualizations - Interactive charts for test results
• Custom test templates - Pre-configured plans for e-commerce, membership sites, etc.
• Query complexity metrics - Track resolver performance

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🖖 Author

Built by Phill in a caffeine-fueled, chaos-aligned, performance-obsessed dev haze.

⸻

"If you stare at a site load test long enough, the site load test starts to stare back." — Ancient Pressable Proverb

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🧾 License

This project is licensed under the GPLv3 License.