---
title: "Establishing a baseline | Grafana Labs"
description: "Module 3 transition from a first run into a measured baseline with thresholds"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Establishing a baseline

**What you learned in Module 2:**

- How k6 runs your test (virtual users, iterations, three script parts)
- How to install k6, write a script, and run it locally
- How to send the same run to Grafana Cloud k6 for stored results and dashboards
- Which built-in metrics k6 reports and when to lean on local vs cloud execution

* * *

**What you’ll do in this module:**

- **What is a baseline?** Why it comes before stress, spike, and soak
- **Key baseline metrics:** Latency, throughput, errors, and check pass rate
- **Designing a load profile:** Stages and ramping
- **Checks vs thresholds:** Per-response correctness vs whole-run pass or fail
- **Results to thresholds:** Set thresholds from what you measured
- **When thresholds fail:** Terminal output, exit codes, and regression patterns
- **Establish a baseline path:** The hands-on path
- **Baseline complete:** Debrief and what carries into the wrap-up

**Estimated time:** 20-25 minutes