# Sandbox test restaurants

October 1, 2026 · Sandbox

A sandbox build used to drive a real restaurant's site. That made it slow, it could not be told to fail, and it could not run in CI. Sandbox now has test restaurants, the way a payment processor has test cards: name one by its `placeId` and you get the outcome it scripts, every time.

## What changed

- **Twelve test restaurants.** `test_place_carted`, `test_place_needs_choices`, `test_place_needs_location` and its two branches, `test_place_closed`, `test_place_price_changed`, `test_place_placed`, `test_place_failed`, `test_place_unconfirmed`, `test_place_challenge` and `test_place_slow`. [Sandbox test restaurants](https://developer.layout.link/reference/sandbox) lists what each one does.
- **Real orders, simulated.** Carts, confirm, `GET /v1/orders/:id`, the event feed and your webhooks treat them as orders, with `simulated: true`, and the events arrive in seconds.
- **Findable.** In sandbox, `GET /v1/places?query=layout test` lists them, up to `limit`, and `POST /v1/menus` returns their test menu, with known prices.
- **Their own allowance.** 10,000 test restaurant builds a day for each developer account. They never draw your sandbox build allowance.
- **Fire a test webhook.** `POST /v1/sandbox/webhooks/fire` with your `sk_test_` key sends one signed event of any type except `order.needs_approval` to your subscribed endpoints, optionally describing one of your sandbox orders.

```
POST /v1/carts
{ "placeId": "test_place_failed", "items": ["latte"], "idempotencyKey": "ci-4812-cart" }

POST /v1/sandbox/webhooks/fire
{ "event": "order.unconfirmed" }
```

## Why it matters

You can test the paths that matter most and happen least: a declined order, an order Layout cannot confirm either way, a price that moved, a cart that takes a while. Your CI can run them on every commit without a restaurant, a browser or a charge.

## What to do

Nothing, unless you want them. Point your tests at a `test_place_` id with a sandbox credential, and give each run its own idempotency keys. A production credential that names one gets the same answer as for any place that does not exist.

## Breaking changes

None.