> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.archal.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Archal testing sandboxes

> Test agents and integrations against isolated, stateful versions of the services they use.

Archal creates testing sandboxes for software that talks to external services.
Each sandbox contains one or more stateful environments, such as GitHub, Slack,
Datadog, Jira, or Supabase.

The environment keeps data across calls, responds through a provider-shaped
interface, and can return to a known starting state. Your test can create an
issue, send a message, update a monitor, inspect what changed, then reset and
run again without maintaining provider test accounts.

## The product in one picture

```text theme={null}
Archal sandbox
├── GitHub stateful environment
├── Slack stateful environment
└── Datadog stateful environment
```

The sandbox is the customer-visible isolation boundary. The lifecycle API and
CLI call it a `session`, and its stable identifier is `sessionId`. Those names
refer to the same running sandbox.

## What Archal handles

* isolated state for every sandbox
* 22 provider-shaped environments
* five versioned starting states for each environment
* one create, inspect, renew, reset, and destroy lifecycle
* state reads and explicit diffs
* scoped credentials that expire with the sandbox
* usage metering per ready environment

## What stays yours

Archal does not replace your agent harness, model, evaluator, observability
tool, or CI system. Your coding agent connects Archal to the code and tools you
already use. Braintrust, LangSmith, custom evals, and ordinary test runners can
keep doing their current jobs.

## A normal workflow

1. Choose the environments and starting states your test needs.
2. Create one sandbox containing those environments.
3. Point existing provider clients at the returned URLs and scoped credentials.
4. Run the agent, integration test, or QA workflow.
5. Read state or compare it with an explicit before snapshot.
6. Reset for another attempt or destroy the sandbox.

> [card] [Set up with a coding agent](https://docs.archal.ai/quickstart.md)
>
> Pair Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or Devin and let it configure Archal.

> [card] [Understand a sandbox](https://docs.archal.ai/sandboxes/overview.md)
>
> See how isolation, environments, state, and lifecycle fit together.

> [card] [Browse environments](https://docs.archal.ai/environments/overview.md)
>
> Review all 22 environments and their 110 curated starting states.

> [card] [Integrate manually](https://docs.archal.ai/manual-quickstart.md)
>
> Use the CLI, TypeScript client, MCP, or raw REST without a coding agent.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Archal documents the supported provider surface for each environment. Inclusion in the catalog is
> not a claim that every upstream provider operation has been reproduced.


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