Workload generator

pkg/workload/ is a library of synthetic workloads exercising CockroachDB end-to-end. The workload binary (pkg/cmd/workload/) and roachprod-microbench consume it.

What's included

The directory contains 30+ workloads. Notable ones:

Workload	Purpose
kv	Pure KV puts/gets at a chosen size and skew
tpcc	TPC-C benchmark
tpch	TPC-H decision-support
ycsb	YCSB A–F
movr	A relational example used for demos
bank	Two-account transfer (race detection)
bulkingest	IMPORT-style bulk
schemachange	Stress schema changes against a running cluster
randgen	Random schema + random queries (catches optimizer bugs)
vecindex	Vector-index recall and latency

Architecture

Each workload exposes a CLI command via workloadcmd and implements the workload.Generator interface (pkg/workload/workload.go):

• Tables() []Table — schema and bulk-load data generators.
• Ops(...) (QueryLoad, error) — concurrent client operations.
• Hooks() Hooks — pre- and post-run hooks.

A workload run invocation:

1. Connects to a running cluster.
2. Creates the schema (or skips if --init=false).
3. Starts N goroutines doing random ops at a target rate.
4. Reports per-second p50/p95/p99 latency and throughput.

Related pages

• Apps / workload — the binary.
• Apps / roachtest — workloads run as part of nightly stress.