Tracetest Monthly Newsletter - December 2023

*[Join the Slack Community here](https://dub.sh/tracetest-community) to talk all things Tracetest, get instant support from our team, or simply say hi! If you like what we're doing, and haven't already, [leave us a ⭐ on GitHub](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest). Thank you for being part of the community. Your support and feedback are invaluable! ❤️*

Hello, Tracetest Community! Happy holidays from the Tracetest team! 🎄

We are thrilled to share the latest updates and exciting news from the Tracetest community! Take a look at what's happened in the last month. 👇

## Hot tip of the day!

**Variables**

To make it easier to move tests across environments like `dev`, `test`, or `prod` you can set variables in the test URL. The OpenTelemetry Demo environment in Tracetest showcases this by using `http://${var:FRONTEND_ADDR}/api/checkout` as a URL.

[**👉 Check it out for yourself in the OpenTelemetry Demo environment!**](https://app.tracetest.io/organizations/ttorg_2179a9cd8ba8dfa5/invites/invite_473e7989f1c27be9/accept)


This will use the `FRONTEND_ADDR` environment variable. You set the variable by adding it to a Variable Set.


## OpenTelemetry Highlights! 🚨

Huge progress has been made in the [OpenTelemetry Web Browser](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/instrumentation/js/getting-started/browser/) libraries. Purvi Kanal presented an [awesome talk at KubeCon North America](https://kccncna2023.sched.com/event/1R2m6) a few months ago that’s well worth checking out.

This introduces tracing in front end apps as well. It would be pretty awesome to enable complete end-to-end testing from the browser to back-end services and databases. Maybe even using Cypress to trigger Tracetest tests.

*Hint hint*… here’s a preview of how the testing triangle will change next month! 😉


## What’s New with Tracetest 🎉

[**Tracetest Core v0.15.0**](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/releases/tag/v0.15.0) was released with new guides and example apps.

**[Run Agent on the Cloud](https://docs.tracetest.io/concepts/cloud-agent).** Tracetest Cloud Agent allows you to run Tracetest tests against public facing endpoints without deploying the Tracetest Agent. This allowing you to trigger tests against public endpoints and collect traces information from either public trace data stores or, alternatively, directly receive incoming OTLP data.


[**Run Agent in `verbose` mode](https://docs.tracetest.io/configuration/agent#configure-tracetest-agent).** If you are running Tracetest Agent on a server and want to see detailed information about its execution, you can start it with the `--mode=verbose` flag.

## Integrations 🤝

**k6 Integration.** We integrated with k6 in April of 2023. To provide you with more streamlined guides for performance testing, we have new resources for you to check out.

- [**New guide and tutorial**](https://docs.tracetest.io/tools-and-integrations/k6)
- [**New example app**](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/tree/main/examples/tracetest-k6)

**OpenTelemetry Filter Processor.** Learn about this new feature in Matheus’ latest blog post.

- [**OpenTelemetry Collector's New Filter Processor**](https://tracetest.io/blog/opentelemetry-collectors-new-filter-processor)

**Synthetic Monitoring with the new Tracetest GitHub Action**: Dive into synthetic monitoring with our new GitHub Action.

- **Check out the [blog post](https://tracetest.io/blog/synthetic-monitoring-with-the-tracetest-github-action) and the [GitHub Action](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest-github-action) for more details**

## Community Highlights

**Success Stories.** Read about how our customers are using Tracetest to revolutionize their testing practices:

- [**Tyk Technologies**](https://tyk.io/blog/how-tyk-leverages-tracetest-for-effective-integration-testing-of-opentelemetry/) — Trace-based testing for API management.
- [**Uzufly**](https://tracetest.io/case-studies/how-uzufly-built-end-to-end-testing-serverless-web-app-with-distributed-traces) — Performance testing serverless web apps.
- [**Sigma**](https://tracetest.io/case-studies/how-sigma-software-built-load-testing-for-their-microservices-with-k6-tracetest) — Performance and load testing with the k6 integration.

**OpenTelemetry Community.** Tracetest is now part of the [official OpenTelemetry-ecosystem vendors](https://opentelemetry.io/ecosystem/vendors/)!

**Upcoming Conferences.**

- **FOSDEM 2024:** Mark your calendars for meet in Brussels on February 3rd! I’m co-presenting a talk at **[FOSDEM 2024](https://fosdem.org/2024/)** with our good friend [Sonja Chevre from Tyk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonjachevre/). **Learn more about the topic, [here](https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2024/talk/review/DVE8WDQVSV733RKUCSESZYFSX7VH8XYD).**


## **Like what we do?**

**Do you have a specific use case you would like us to cover? Do you want to contribute to Tracetest?**

At Tracetest, we welcome all contributions!

Not sure where to start? You can:

- Visit our [Community Page](https://tracetest.io/community).
- Check out our contributing guidelines [here](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md).
- [Book a meeting](https://calendly.com/ken-kubeshop/45min?month=2023-08) with us or chat with our team on [Slack](https://dub.sh/tracetest-community).

Thank you for being a part of the Tracetest community! We are committed to providing the necessary tools, knowledge, and resources to succeed in the field of tracing and testing. Let’s stay in touch and continue exploring. Stay tuned for more exciting updates in the coming months.

See you next month!