Test users and messages in non-production environments

The development and staging environments are made for tests. They differ from production in two ways: you can sign in with test users and a fixed code, and every message the environment sends is marked and limited so that it cannot be mistaken for a real one. Two parts of this page are not available yet and are marked planned: the log tail entries and SMS.

Test users and the fixed code

A test user is a normal user whose identifier is reserved for tests:

• Test email address: the local part carries a +test tag, for example ada+test@example.com or ada+test_1@example.com.
• Test phone number: a number from +1 555 555 0100 to +1 555 555 0199, a range reserved for fictional use.

In development and staging, nothing is sent to these identifiers. In development, the one-time code and the magic link code are always accepted as 424242. (planned: the real code is generated as well and appears in the log tail, so you can also test with it.)

The fixed code works only for test identifiers in development. For any other address, and in staging, it is not valid. In production, a +test address behaves like any other address and the fixed code does not exist. Test users count towards your normal user count.

Create test users with the create user call, the same as any other user.

To get tokens for a test user without the login page, run keenauth test login --user ada+test@example.com --client-id <application ID> (see Signing in test users with keenauth test login).

Message prefix and suppression

In development and staging, every outgoing email is marked: its subject starts with [DEV] or [STAGING]. You cannot remove the prefix, neither in a custom template nor in the call that sends the message. It makes it harder to abuse the environment for phishing.

The environments also limit how many emails leave the platform each day. The limit depends on how the environment sends email:

A message over the limit is suppressed and not sent. (planned: the log tail shows a message_suppressed entry.) The body of an SMS will carry the same [DEV] or [STAGING] prefix.

The sender address in these environments is the platform's shared domain. A custom sender domain that the platform manages works only in production. Your own SMTP server or email provider works in every environment type, with the prefix and the limits above.