To start testing the APIs, UI elements, and dashboard in a sandbox environment you can create a test profile from the Payload dashboard. To create a test profile log into your Payload account, click the dropdown on the top left of the left sidebar in your dashboard and either select an existing test profile or click "+ Add New Profile" from the dropdown. Make sure when you're creating a new profile for testing to flip the "Test Account" toggle to on.
Once you've selected an existing test profile or created a new one, you'll find your API key in your dashboard that can be use for testing. The test API
key give you access to a private test environment where you can
run simulated API requests to test and integrate Payload into your application.
Test API keys will always start with test_secret_key and test_client_key whereas production
keys will start with secret_key and client_key. Please refer to our UI Authentication section to generate one-time client tokens.