Decoder. plain-English AI glossary

Stress testing

● Core

Pushing your system to its limits with extreme volume, latency, or complexity to find breaking points.

Think of it like

A car crash test — you intentionally break it to see where it fails.

Example

You load-test your inference server by sending 100,000 queries per second and monitoring when latency explodes or requests error.

How it actually works

Stress tests reveal infrastructure limits, not model quality. You find that your GPU runs out of memory at 500 concurrent requests, or your database hits its connection pool. These are predictable failures once you know the limit. The goal: know your limits before users find them.

For product teams

Essential before scaling. Know where you'll break before it matters.

For engineers

Use load-testing tools (locust, k6, jmeter). Gradually increase load, log when metrics degrade, measure breaking point.

Infrastructure readiness.

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