Sandbox

A test environment with fake data and forced outcomes.

Developers can try the whole verification flow without using real customers or real money, and they can make the system return a chosen result to see how their app reacts.

An isolated environment supporting deterministic test cases and simulated decision paths. Isolated means it is separate from the live system, deterministic means a given test input always produces the same result, and simulated means the outcomes are produced on purpose instead of by real checks.

A sandbox typically offers several features:

• Test credentials, which are separate from live ones so tests cannot touch real data.
• Forced outcomes, such as test documents or inputs that always approve, always decline, or always send for review.
• Simulated events, such as webhook messages that arrive as they would in production.
• No real consequences, since no real customer, charge, or screening hit is involved.

A team typically uses it like this:

1. They build the integration against the sandbox.
2. They run each path, including approve, decline, review, and error cases.
3. They check that the app and the webhook handler respond correctly to each one.
4. They switch to live credentials once every path works.

A sandbox sits next to terms that are easy to mix up:

• Production is the live environment with real customers and real decisions.
• Webhook messages can be simulated in a sandbox so teams can test their handler.
• Software development kit (SDK) is the component that capture flows use in both sandbox and production.