# Sandbox

> An isolated environment with simulated charge points for building and testing your integration without real charging infrastructure or charges.

## Requesting access

The sandbox requires separate credentials from production. Contact us to request sandbox access, we'll set up a sandbox integration and provide:

- A sandbox Bearer token
- A set of test charge point IDs

## Base URL

```
https://chargenow.road.io
```

The sandbox uses the same base URL as production. The only difference is your credentials: swap in your sandbox token and you're ready to go.

## What the sandbox simulates

The sandbox replicates the full charging session lifecycle:

**Pending** → **Starting** → **Started** → **Stopping** → **Stopped** → **Settled**

This includes realistic async behaviour: sessions take a few seconds to move from `Starting` to `Started`, mirroring the timing you'd see with real charge points. This lets you test your polling logic and state-change handling before going live.

Locations and charge points behave the same as production: you can query them via the Locations API and use `enrich_charge_points=true` as normal.

## Limitations

- **No real charging infrastructure** - the sandbox does not communicate with physical charge points
- **Billing data is not real** - cost and energy values are simulated
- **Sandbox data may be reset** - we may periodically reset sandbox data; don't rely on it for long-term storage
- **Test charge points only** - use the IDs we provide; charge points from production do not exist in the sandbox

## Testing state transitions

Each test charge point ID we provide is pre-configured to exercise a specific scenario. Currently, the sandbox supports:

- **Happy path** - session starts, progresses through all states, and settles successfully

More test scenarios will be added over time. If you need a specific edge case, contact us.