The sandbox

Think of it as Pudgy's playpen: a complete, isolated copy of the API where no real seeds are ever spent. Use it for development, automated tests, and demos.

Test keys vs. live keys

	Test mode	Live mode
Key prefix	sk_test_	sk_live_
Money movement	Simulated only	Real
Webhooks	Delivered to your test endpoints	Delivered to your live endpoints
Data	Cleared periodically	Retained per your data policy

The two environments share no data. An object created with a test key is invisible to a live key and vice versa.

Test cards

The sandbox recognizes special card tokens that force a specific outcome, so you can exercise both happy and unhappy paths deterministically.

Token	Behavior
tok_visa	Succeeds
tok_mastercard	Succeeds
tok_chargeDeclined	Declined with card_declined
tok_insufficientFunds	Declined with insufficient_funds
tok_expiredCard	Declined with expired_card
tok_processingError	Returns a 502 you can retry

Testing failures is not optional. The most common production incident in payments is mishandling a decline you never tested.

Triggering webhook events

In test mode you can fire any event on demand rather than waiting for a real state change:

curl https://api.pudgypay.dev/v1/test/events \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PUDGY_KEY" \
  -d type=charge.succeeded

This delivers a fully-formed event to your registered test endpoints so you can validate signature checking and handler logic. See Handle webhooks.