Test and Live Instances
Every project has separate Test and Live Instances. They are independent trust boundaries, not labels on the same user directory.
| Boundary | Test | Live |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Development and automated testing | Real production traffic |
| Credentials | Test Client IDs and secrets | Live Client IDs and secrets |
| Users | Test-only identities | Real end users |
| Managed test users | Available | Never available |
| Callback URLs | Local and test deployments | Production HTTPS URLs |
| Providers and email | Test configuration | Production configuration |
What is not copied automatically
Creating or updating Test configuration does not promote applications, credentials, users, provider secrets, email settings, or sessions to Live. Configure Live deliberately after validating the full Test flow.
Never copy a Test Client ID into a production deployment. Credential prefixes help humans notice mistakes, but applications must still load the correct secret for their deployment.
Recommended workflow
- Create the application in Test.
- Register the local callback and post-logout URLs.
- Configure authentication and create managed test users.
- Verify sign-in, callback validation, session creation, refresh, revocation, and logout.
- Exercise error states and waitlist behavior.
- Create or configure the matching application in Live.
- Register only production URLs.
- Configure production email and external providers.
- Deploy Live credentials through the application's secret manager.
- Run a controlled Live smoke test with a real identity.
Data and support safety
Do not use real customer identity documents, provider credentials, or personal production data in Test. Do not copy Live users into Test to reproduce a bug. Use managed test users and sanitized diagnostic information.
When contacting support, provide the public Instance ID, application ID, request time, and correlation ID when available. Do not send passwords, OTPs, authorization codes, tokens, Client Secrets, or raw identity documents.
Continue with the production launch checklist.