Sandbox vs Production
Understand the difference between test and live environments and how to manage them correctly.
Overview
Begini provides separate environments to allow you to safely test your integration before going live.
Understanding how environments work is critical to avoiding data issues, failed integrations, and incorrect deployments.
Why environments matter
During integration, you need to:
- Test your implementation
- Validate data flows
- Debug issues
Doing this in a live (production) environment can cause:
- Corrupted or unusable data
- Incorrect scoring results
- Operational risk
Environments ensure that testing and live usage remain completely separate.
Available environments
Begini typically provides two environments:
Sandbox (Test)
Used for:
- Development
- Testing integrations
- Debugging issues
Characteristics:
- Safe to use
- Does not impact live operations
- May use test data or simulated behaviour
Production
Used for:
- Live applications
- Real users
- Actual decisioning
Characteristics:
- Real data
- Real scoring outcomes
- Direct business impact
Key differences
API keys per environment
Each environment has its own API key.
This means:
- Sandbox API keys only work in sandbox
- Production API keys only work in production
Using the wrong key will result in failed requests.
Webhooks per environment
Webhook configurations are also environment-specific.
You should:
- Use a test endpoint for sandbox
- Use a production endpoint for live
This prevents test data from polluting your production systems.
Common mistakes
- Using production API keys during testing
- Sending sandbox data to production systems
- Forgetting to switch webhook endpoints before go-live
- Mixing test and real user data
Best practices
- Clearly separate sandbox and production configurations
- Use different endpoints for each environment
- Label keys and integrations clearly
- Validate everything in sandbox before going live
Recommended workflow
- Build and test in sandbox
- Validate webhook handling
- Confirm scoring and data flow
- Switch to production environment
- Monitor initial live traffic
Next steps
To complete your setup:
- API Authentication Guide
- Go Live Checklist
- Security Best Practices
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