---
title: "Start Load Test"
method: POST
path: "/load_test/start"
---

# Start Load Test

`POST /load_test/start`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://api.traversal.com` (the document declares no server; this is the origin it was published from)
- URL: `https://api.traversal.com/load_test/start`
- Auth: none declared

Start a load test. Returns immediately with a load_test_id for polling.

## Request body

- StartLoadTestRequestInput
  - `config_name` 'default' | 'aexp' | 'digital_ocean' | 'pepsi' | 'dell' | 'traversal' | 'kraken' | 'slack_demo' | 'baseten' | 'capital_one' | 'health_check' | 'autoresearch' | 'nubank' | 'autodesk' | 'optum' | 'harvey' | 'hsbc' | 'blackstone' | 'metlife' | 'blackrock'
  - `incident_prompts` IncidentPrompt[], required
    - `description` string, required
    - `incident_time` string, required: ISO 8601 timestamp
    - `config_name` 'default' | 'aexp' | 'digital_ocean' | 'pepsi' | 'dell' | 'traversal' | 'kraken' | 'slack_demo' | 'baseten' | 'capital_one' | 'health_check' | 'autoresearch' | 'nubank' | 'autodesk' | 'optum' | 'harvey' | 'hsbc' | 'blackstone' | 'metlife' | 'blackrock', required
  - `runs_per_incident` integer: Sessions per incident
  - `concurrency` integer, required: Maximum sessions to run concurrently. Lower values run sessions in waves.
  - `thinking_mode` 'auto' | 'deep' | 'fast' | 'lightning' | 'ultra': Determines the investigation depth and approach. - AUTO: Use message classifier to determine RCA vs CHAT - DEEP: Force RCA (root cause analysis) investigation - FAST: Force CHAT (exploratory) investigation - LIGHTNING: Fast, tool-rich investigation with tight iteration cap. Uses the union of all tools from fast + deep configs with a speed-focused prompt. - ULTRA: Same agent config as DEEP. The client-side trigger for first-turn ensembling. A no-op on follow-ups.
  - `mode` 'rca' | 'chat' | 'triage' | 'alert_story'

## Response `200`

Successful Response

- StartLoadTestResponse
  - `load_test_id` string, required
  - `message` string

## Other responses

- `422`: Validation Error

## Changes

> 66 revisions in range; 9 not diffed.

- **2026-09-24** `2fc80b73eb41`: 2 info
  - added the new `blackrock` enum value to the request property `config_name/anyOf[subschema #1: OrganizationName]/`
  - added the new `blackrock` enum value to the request property `incident_prompts/items/config_name`
- **2026-09-18** `af140c3c54d8`: 2 info
  - added the new `dell` enum value to the request property `config_name/anyOf[subschema #1: OrganizationName]/`
  - added the new `dell` enum value to the request property `incident_prompts/items/config_name`
- **2026-09-11** `c5e1ea955e81`: 1 info
  - added the new `ultra` enum value to the request property `thinking_mode`

[Operation history](https://skmtc.dev/traversal/apis/traversal-api/changes/load_test/start/post.md)

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/traversal/apis/traversal-api.md) - [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/traversal/apis/traversal-api/llms.txt) - [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/traversal/apis/traversal-api/revisions/31e1a8b7cf89?raw)