[Session] One Test a Day Keeps the Issues Away with Oleksandr Kotov - Grafana Labs

Testing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers ensures software reliability, security, and user satisfaction by mitigating risks such as privilege escalation, data leaks, and scalability bottlenecks. Developers can utilize performance testing tools like Grafana K6, enhanced with custom extensions, to simulate synthetic user loads and evaluate system behavior under various conditions. By implementing specific load patterns—including constant, ramping, spike, and soak tests—teams can identify performance degradation, memory leaks, and infrastructure limitations before deployment. Defining automated thresholds within CI/CD pipelines further enables the proactive detection of issues, ensuring that MCP-based services maintain high performance and responsiveness. This systematic approach to both functional and non-functional testing provides the necessary confidence to push updates and scale services effectively in production environments.