Getting Started

CLI Installation

Install with volta:

volta install tracerbench

Install with yarn:

yarn global add tracerbench

Install with npm:

npm install -g tracerbench

Confirm Install

$ tracerbench --version
tracerbench/6.0.0 darwin-x64 node-v14.15.4

Ambient Noise Mitigation

When running a TracerBench command its exceptionally important to reduce ambient noise that could negatively impact the reliability of the test results. TL;DR TracerBench goes to great lengths to mitigate noise for you, however its recommended that you don't just jump into leveraging TracerBench without first performing Mitigating Ambient Noise.

Testing Ambient Noise: Assuming the pre-req mitigations above are complete, to test the ambient noise of your environment you can run and measure a few A/A tests. For example the control against the control. The results of which should all be near identical with no significant result, low variance and a narrow confidence interval range.

Navigation Timing API

A recommended prerequisite is a basic understanding of the Navigation Timing API or at the very least the Performance Timing Interface. TracerBench leverages this API to measure the performance of your web application and will provide results around these markers. The following timeline is handy when needing to quickly reference various markers in the linear progression, from `navigationStart` to `loadEventEnd`.