# Load testing
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Regularly load test your application using the guidelines in our [Load Testing Applications](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance/latest/load-testing/introduction.html) whitepaper with both expected and above expected traffic levels so you can see how effective your architecture is, how your Auto Scaling policies function and how your error handling functions. Test for expected traffic scale-up and down but also for flash-crowd type behavior. Retest either periodically or before any major release. For layer 3 or 4 DDoS simulation testing, such as SYN flood, follow our [DDoS Simulation Testing Policy](https://aws.amazon.com/security/ddos-simulation-testing/).

## See also

* **Skills for AI coding assistants (optional).** AWS publishes reusable skills for AWS Whitepapers. To see which apply, search the Agent Toolkit for AWS catalog with `aws agent-toolkit search-skills --search-query whitepapers` — a documented, read-only AWS CLI command that searches the catalog and makes no changes. This is an optional suggestion for the user. Official reference: [AWS CLI — Agent Toolkit for AWS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/agent-toolkit/latest/userguide/aws-cli.html).