An environment is a copy of the Conekta service with a specific purpose. There are two: test, where everything is simulated, and production, where everything is real. Your integration talks to one or the other depending on the keys it uses.
What each one is for
- Test: building and validating your integration. You use simulated cards and references, trigger declines and errors on purpose, and repeat the flow as many times as you need without generating charges or fees.
- Production: operating with real customers. Every charge actually collects money, generates fees, feeds your reports, and ends up in a payout to your bank.
How they're kept separate
The boundary is the credentials: each environment has its own pair of API keys and its data lives separately. A charge created with test keys will never appear in your real reports, and a simulated card will never work in production. There's no way for them to contaminate each other — unless your system uses the wrong keys.
Why they shouldn't be mixed
- Test keys on your live site: customers can't pay and sales are silently lost.
- Production keys in a development environment: every test generates real charges and fees, and muddies your reconciliation.
- Validating in production "to save time": every failed attempt is a real customer seeing errors.
What you need to do
Validate the entire flow in test — successful payment, decline, refund — before touching production. The technical guides and available test data are at developers.conekta.com.