SGEN sandbox walkthrough

How to create, use, snapshot, and promote your SGEN sandbox

The SGEN sandbox is a separate, isolated environment that lives completely apart from any production site. Nothing you do there affects your live site, your SEO footprint, or real visitors. It is a throwaway space you own fully — build in it, break it, reset it, and walk away whenever you are ready.

This guide covers the full sandbox lifecycle in one place: what the sandbox is and when to reach for it, how to create a sandbox project, how the sandbox differs from production, how to save and restore its state via snapshots and resets, and how to promote a completed sandbox to a live production site.

The examples throughout this guide reflect a team using SGEN across two production properties.

What is this for?

The sandbox exists so that admins can learn SGEN, prototype new structures, and validate configurations — all with real tools, real interactions, and real feedback — without the weight of a live site behind every decision.

Most platforms hand you a production environment and tell you to be careful. SGEN gives you a sandbox first. The distinction matters: when the cost of a wrong click is nothing, you move faster and retain more.

The sandbox is the right environment for:

• Learning the platform for the first time.

You signed up for SGEN this week, or you inherited admin access for an existing site. The sandbox is where you get familiar with the dashboard, content types, the builder, and settings without needing to treat every action as permanent.

• Evaluating SGEN before committing.

Your team is assessing whether SGEN fits a specific project or migration. The sandbox gives you a working environment to evaluate against your requirements — create real pages, connect a starter template, add content, and test workflows.

• Prototyping a new section or content structure.

You have an idea for a resource library, a product launch sequence, a custom content type. Build the prototype in sandbox before proposing it to the team.

• Testing a migration approach.

Run the trial import in sandbox before executing against production data. The sandbox absorbs mistakes so production does not have to.

• Training new team members.

Some teams run quarterly training sessions using a shared sandbox. Trainers create exercises inside it; contributors complete them without any live exposure. The sandbox resets between cohorts.

Good use cases

Each of these is a real pattern the sandbox handles well.

• New admin onboarding.

A new marketing manager joins a team and needs to get comfortable with SGEN's admin before touching the live site. Given sandbox access on day one, they pick a starter template and spend two days walking through every content area — blog posts, pages, custom objects, forms, media — without any oversight anxiety. By the time the production admin opens, they already know where everything is.

• Pre-purchase evaluation.

A regional agency was assessing SGEN for a client migration. They needed to verify that SGEN could handle multi-language content, custom object types, and a specific URL structure. They ran all three tests in a sandbox over three days. The evaluation gave them a real answer instead of a demo.

• Content structure prototyping.

A marketing lead wanted to build a new recurring page type combining editorial copy, a sourcing map, a tasting notes block, and a buy CTA. Before proposing the structure to the dev team, they built a prototype in sandbox, published it, reviewed it, and revised the structure twice. The dev team received a finished specification instead of a vague brief.

• Migration rehearsal.

A site was migrating from a legacy CMS. The migration script had never run on a SGEN environment before. The team ran the full import against the sandbox, found three field-mapping errors, corrected the script, and ran a clean import on production the following week.

• Scoping a redesign without touching production.

Your current site is live, receiving traffic, and generating revenue. You want to explore a significantly different homepage layout. Build it in sandbox, share the URL with stakeholders, and get alignment before a single change touches production.

• Building a demo for a stakeholder pitch.

Create a sandbox, populate it with the proposed structure and representative content, and share the URL. Stakeholders click through a real, working environment — not a slide deck, not a mockup, not a screenshot.

What NOT to use this for

The sandbox is purpose-built for learning, prototyping, and evaluation. It is not a secondary production environment, and treating it as one creates problems.

• Do not host content for real visitors in the sandbox.

The sandbox URL is not indexed by search engines. It is not served at your branded domain. Any content you publish inside the sandbox is only accessible to people with the sandbox link.

• Do not share the sandbox URL with customers.

The sandbox is an internal tool. Its URL reflects the environment's test nature — it is not appropriate for client presentations, customer-facing references, or any branded communication. If you need to show work to a client, promote the content to production first.

• Do not use the sandbox as long-term storage.

Content created in the sandbox does not sync to production. If you build something you want to move to production, the promote-to-production flow handles that — but only for content that qualifies for promotion. Media, structural experiments, and custom field definitions need to be rebuilt in production using the sandbox as a specification. Do not treat sandbox content as a backup or archive.

• Do not use the sandbox for regulatory compliance evidence.

The sandbox is not an audit-ready environment. It does not carry the audit logging or data-residency guarantees of a production environment. Anything that needs to be compliant — content retention records, audit trails, access logs — must live in production.

• Do not run live payment or data-collection workflows in the sandbox.

Forms and integrations in the sandbox are for testing only. Sandbox environments are not connected to live payment processors or CRM systems by default. Treat any form submission or integration test as synthetic.

• Do not use a sandbox as a clone of your production site.

A sandbox starts from a template or a blank slate — it does not import your existing production content automatically. If you need a copy of production to test against, use the snapshot-and-restore workflow or the promote flow.

How this connects to other features

• Production sites —

The sandbox is completely separate from your production site. There is no automatic sync in either direction. Changes in sandbox do not affect production; changes in production do not appear in the sandbox. This separation is the point.

• Brand kit —

The sandbox can be pre-loaded with your brand kit (colors, fonts, logo) so that anything you prototype looks like your actual brand instead of SGEN's defaults. Load the brand kit in the sandbox the same way you would in production: go to Settings → Appearance → Brand Kit.

• Templates —

SGEN's starter templates are available in the sandbox. When you create a new sandbox, you choose a starter template or start blank. The starter templates are the same ones available for production builds — evaluating them in the sandbox is the correct way to choose the right one before committing.

• Team members and roles —

You can invite team members into a sandbox environment with the same role-based access controls used in production. This is how training sessions work: contributors added with Contributor access, editors with Editor access.

• Promote-to-production flow —

When content is ready for the real site, the promote flow handles the transfer. Not all content types support direct promotion — see the Promoting sandbox to production section of this guide.

• Snapshots and backups —

Sandbox snapshots are on-demand saves of the full sandbox state. Production scheduled backups are a separate system. The two do not overlap — one does not substitute for the other.

Before you start

Have an account. The sandbox is accessible from your SGEN account — you need to be signed in. The sandbox is available on all SGEN plan tiers.

Decide your intent. The most common intents are: orientation (learning the dashboard for the first time), evaluation (testing specific capabilities), or prototyping (building a proof of concept). Knowing which one you are doing shapes how you use the sandbox. For orientation, pick a starter template and walk through the content areas in order. For evaluation, start blank and build toward your specific requirement. For prototyping, start from the template closest to your target structure.

Know what you will NOT be bringing back. Sandbox content does not auto-migrate to production. If you are planning to prototype something you intend to use in production, take notes on the decisions you make — the field structure, the layout choices, the content types — so you can reproduce them in production with the sandbox as your specification.

Have your brand kit available if you want realistic visuals. Have your hex values, font names, and logo file ready before you open the sandbox. Loading the brand kit at sandbox creation takes two minutes and makes every prototype representative of your real brand.

Understand the reset behavior. If you click Reset on a sandbox, all content inside it is permanently wiped and the sandbox returns to its original template state. There is no undo and no recycle bin inside the sandbox. If you have notes, screenshots, or specifications you want to preserve, save them outside the sandbox before clicking Reset.

Where to go

Go to Dashboard in the left navigation. Under the main navigation items, look for Sandbox in the Environments section. If you do not see Sandbox in your navigation, your plan tier may not include it — contact your account administrator to confirm sandbox access.

From the sandbox list, click New sandbox to create a new one, or click the name of an existing sandbox to enter it. The sandbox admin is identical to the production admin in layout and navigation — the only visible difference is a Sandbox banner in the header bar that confirms you are in an isolated environment.

Steps

Part 1 — Create your sandbox project

1. Open the sandbox list

Sign in to your SGEN account. In the left navigation, go to Dashboard and click Sandbox under Environments. The sandbox list page loads, showing all sandboxes tied to your account.

If this is your first time, the list is empty. If another team member has already created a shared sandbox for onboarding purposes, it may appear under the Shared with me tab.

2. Name the sandbox and choose a template

Click New sandbox in the top right. The setup form opens.

Give the sandbox a descriptive name that matches your intent. For an orientation run, "My first sandbox" is fine. For a prototyping project, name it after the feature or section: "Your site — spotlight section prototype." The name appears in the Sandbox list and in the header bar of the sandbox editor — it is how you and your team identify this environment among others.

Choose a starting template:

• Retail Store — best for hospitality, food and beverage, and service businesses.

Includes homepage, menu, about, contact, and blog section.

• Portfolio — best for agencies, freelancers, and professional services.

Includes work showcase, case study layout, and contact form.

• Blog — best for content-heavy operations.

Includes post feed, category navigation, and a simple static homepage.

• Ecommerce — best for product-led businesses.

Includes product listings, product detail layout, and a category structure.

• Blank — no pre-built content.

You start from an empty navigation and no pages. Best for scoped redesigns where you want to build from scratch.

If you are evaluating SGEN for the first time, pick the template closest to your real use case. The template only sets the starting state — everything is editable after the sandbox is created.

If you want to work with your actual brand colors and fonts, check Pre-load brand kit. This loads your brand kit automatically when the sandbox is created.

Click Create sandbox. The sandbox initializes and opens the dashboard.

3. Explore the dashboard in the sandbox

The sandbox dashboard is identical to production. Walk through the left navigation: Blog, Pages, Custom Objects, Media, Forms, Templates, Settings. Click into each area and observe how it is organized.

For orientation, the recommended walk order is: Pages (see how static pages are structured), Blog (see how dated content is organized), Media (see the asset library), Forms (see how lead capture is handled), Settings (see site-wide configuration).

If you chose a starter template, the sandbox already has sample content — placeholder pages, some blog posts, a sample navigation structure. Real content gives you something to edit and interact with rather than starting from blank fields.

4. Make a few changes and observe the results

The best way to learn the sandbox is to use it. Create a new blog post, publish it, and view it in the sandbox site preview. Create a page, add a heading and some text, and publish it. Upload a media file.

A useful orientation exercise sequence: create a blog post titled "Test post — delete me" and publish it, create a page titled "About — draft" and add three sections, upload your logo to the media library and confirm the file appears correctly.

These three exercises touch every area of the content admin that the marketing team uses day to day. After completing them, a new admin has muscle memory for the core workflows before they ever touch production.

5. Use the site preview to see the public-facing result

In the sandbox dashboard, click Open site preview (or the eye icon in the header). The sandbox site opens in a new tab. This is what a visitor would see — rendered from the content you have created in the sandbox, styled with the starter template and your brand kit.

The sandbox site URL is internal — it is not a public domain, not indexed by search engines, and not accessible by anyone without the link. Share it with teammates for internal review during prototyping work. Do not share it with customers or external stakeholders.

Review what you built. Confirm the blog post appears in the feed, the page is accessible at its URL, and the media file is visible where you used it. The sandbox site preview behaves like a production site for content and layout purposes — what you see here is a reliable indication of how the same content would look on production.

6. Decide — keep, reset, or promote

At the end of your sandbox session, you have three options.

Keep it as is. Leave the sandbox intact and return to it later. Sandboxes persist until you archive or reset them. A prototyping sandbox can stay alive for weeks while work is ongoing.

Reset it. Go to sandbox settings and click Reset sandbox. This wipes all content in the sandbox and restores it to the original template state. Use this between training cohorts or when a prototyping project is finished.

Promote content to production. If you have built something that is ready for the live site, use the promote-to-production flow. Not every content type supports direct promotion — see Part 4 of this guide for what transfers and what you need to rebuild.

Part 2 — Understand sandbox vs production

Before starting significant work, know which environment belongs to the task.

Use this comparison before every significant session:

Naming your task makes the decision fast. Say aloud what you are about to do. "I am going to update the pricing page to add the new monthly tier" — that is a real change intended for real visitors. That is production work. "I am going to try a different layout for the homepage hero to see how it looks" — that is exploratory work. That is sandbox work.

Check the top navigation badge before every save. A sandbox environment shows an amber Sandbox badge next to your site name. A production environment shows your site name with no badge. If the badge does not match your intent, close the tab and open the correct environment.

Know the inactivity rule. Sandbox environments are auto-archived after 30 days of inactivity. If you have a sandbox you have not touched in a month, log in, take a snapshot if there is anything worth keeping, and confirm the sandbox is still active before beginning new work.

Promotion is one-way. Once content is promoted from sandbox to production, it lives in production. You cannot pull it back. Plan your promotion before you start sandbox work, not after.

Part 3 — Reset or snapshot your sandbox

Both operations live in one place: Sandbox Settings → Reset and Snapshots.

A snapshot saves your sandbox exactly as it stands right now — pages, settings, media, content — into a named .sgen file you can restore any time.

A reset wipes the sandbox back to a baseline you choose: blank, your current template, or a specific saved snapshot. Your other snapshots survive a reset untouched.

Take a snapshot

1. From your sandbox dashboard, click Settings in the left sidebar.
2. Click Reset and Snapshots.
3. Confirm the sandbox mode banner is visible at the top of the page.
4. Click Take Snapshot at the top right of the snapshots section.
5. Type a descriptive name.

Include context and date: what is in the sandbox right now, and when. yoursite-homepage-v1-2026-05-24 tells you the project, content, version, and date at a glance. test-snapshot tells you nothing.

1. Click Save Snapshot.

SGEN packages the current sandbox state into a .sgen file. For a typical sandbox this takes thirty seconds to two minutes depending on media volume.

1. When complete, the snapshot appears at the top of the snapshots list

with the name you gave it, the current date and time, and the file size.

Snapshot naming convention:

FORMAT: <client>-<content-type>-<version>-<date>EXAMPLESyoursite-homepage-v1-2026-05-24 Homepage layout, first version, saved May 24yoursite-launch-demo-may2026 Product launch demo state for stakeholder reviewyoursite-sandbox-standard Standard configured baseline for onboardingpre-promote-may2026 Snapshot taken before promoting to productionAVOIDsnapshot-1 No context, unrecognizable latertest Too vague to distinguish from other testsfinal Every snapshot is "final" at the time it is savedbackup Reserve this label for production backups

Reset the sandbox

1. From your sandbox dashboard, go to Settings → Reset and Snapshots.
2. In the Reset section below the snapshots list, open the Reset Baseline dropdown.

Choose one of three options:

• Blank — removes all content, pages, settings, and media from the sandbox.
• Current template — resets to the template the sandbox was originally set up with.
• Restore from snapshot — sets the sandbox to a specific named snapshot.

1. Type RESET (exactly, all capitals) in the confirmation field.

The Reset Sandbox button is disabled until the confirmation field matches. This step exists because reset is not reversible.

1. Click Reset Sandbox.
2. A final confirmation dialog appears summarizing the baseline you chose.

Click Confirm Reset to proceed.

Do not navigate away from the page while the reset is in progress. For sandboxes with large media libraries, reset can take up to five minutes.

Pre-reset rule: if there is anything in the current sandbox state worth keeping, take a snapshot before you reset. The worst outcome of an extra snapshot is a few megabytes of storage. The worst outcome of a reset without a prior snapshot is unrecoverable loss of work.

Snapshot tips:

• Download snapshots for anything you plan to keep longer than thirty days.

Auto-expiry is real. If a sandbox state represents a demo, a completed prototype, or a pre-promote record, download the .sgen file and store it locally or in a team drive. The file is self-contained and can be restored from the snapshot upload flow.

• Treat the pre-promote snapshot as mandatory, not optional.

Before promoting any sandbox build to production, take a named snapshot. Label it clearly with pre-promote and the date. This is the snapshot you will reach for if something surfaces in production that was not visible in sandbox.

• Delete snapshots you no longer need.

Storage limits are finite. Old test snapshots that served their purpose — a layout test that was rejected, a prototype that was rebuilt from scratch — are candidates for deletion.

Part 4 — Promote your sandbox to production

Promoting a sandbox to production in SGEN converts your sandbox environment into a fully operational production site. That means its own domain, live analytics, scheduled backups, real email sends, and the complete production feature set. The sandbox content, brand kit, user list, and settings come with it. The sandbox stays behind as a preserved snapshot of what you launched from.

Promotion is one-direction. Production is production. There is no downgrade path once the promotion runs. If something goes wrong, SGEN's snapshot system is your safety net — and this guide covers how to use it before you fire the promote action.

After a successful promote, your production site has:

• Everything that was in the sandbox: pages, posts, custom objects,

media library, brand kit, user accounts, and site settings

• A live domain slot ready to connect to a real domain
• Production analytics collecting real visitor data
• Access to scheduled backups (activated post-promote)
• The full production feature set for your plan tier

What does NOT carry over automatically

These items require setup on the new production site after promote completes:

• Scheduled backups — backup schedules do not carry over; activate them post-promote
• Live analytics data — the sandbox has no real visitor data; analytics starts fresh
• Domain DNS records — applied at the registrar level, not stored in SGEN
• Third-party integrations that require re-authorisation — any OAuth-based integrations

(email marketing platforms, payment processors) need to be re-connected under the production domain

Before you promote

The sandbox content is complete and approved. Do a final review pass. Open the key pages, confirm the content is final, check that placeholder text has been replaced, and verify that any test data or test users have been removed. What is in the sandbox is what goes to production.

Your plan tier supports an additional production site. Go to Settings → Plan and billing and check how many production sites your current plan includes and how many you are currently using. If you are at the limit, upgrade before proceeding.

Take the pre-promote snapshot. Go to the sandbox site card, open the Snapshots tab, and create a manual snapshot. Name it something unambiguous — "pre-promote 2026-05-25" works. This snapshot is your recovery path if anything goes wrong. It takes less than a minute to create.

Steps — Promote

Step 1: Take the pre-promote snapshot. Open the sandbox site card. Go to the Snapshots tab. Click Take snapshot. Give the snapshot a name that includes today's date — "Pre-promote 2026-05-25" — and save it.

This step is listed first because it is the one people skip under time pressure. The promote action is one-direction, and a snapshot is the only rollback path available.

Step 2: Open the promote flow. Go to Sites in the left sidebar. Find your sandbox. Click Promote to production from the site detail view. The promote flow opens as a multi-step dialog.

Read each screen before clicking through — the flow includes a summary of what carries over, a plan tier confirmation, and a one-way warning. All three screens matter.

Step 3: Confirm your plan tier. The first screen asks you to confirm the plan tier for the new production site. If your current plan supports the additional production site, the tier selection appears pre-filled. If the plan check shows you are at your site limit, the promote flow prompts you to upgrade before continuing.

Step 4: Set the domain — or defer it. The second screen asks whether you want to connect a domain now or defer it.

Connect a domain now: enter the domain you want to use. SGEN prepares the DNS record instructions for you to apply at your domain registrar after the promote completes. The domain will not be live until you apply the DNS records.

Defer domain connection: skip the domain step for now. The new production site is accessible via a temporary SGEN-assigned URL immediately after promotion. Connect the domain later from the production site's settings.

Step 5: Review what carries over. The third screen shows a full summary of everything moving from sandbox to production. Read this screen carefully before proceeding.

Step 6: Confirm and fire the promote. Click Promote to production. SGEN begins the promotion process. For most sandboxes, promotion completes in under two minutes. Larger sandboxes with many media files may take longer. A progress indicator shows on screen while the promotion runs. Do not close the tab during promotion.

Step 7: Complete the post-promote setup. When promotion completes, SGEN shows a confirmation screen with the new production site URL and links to the three recommended post-promote steps.

Complete all three:

1. Connect your domain.

Go to the production site's settings, open Domains, and follow the DNS record instructions. Once DNS propagates — usually within a few minutes to a few hours depending on your registrar — the domain is live.

1. Set your SEO defaults.

Go to the production site's Settings → SEO. Set the site title, meta description, and robots configuration. These were not active in sandbox. They take effect as soon as the production site is reachable by search engine crawlers.

1. Activate scheduled backups.

Go to the production site's Settings → Backups. Enable the backup schedule — daily or weekly — and confirm the retention period. The first scheduled backup runs on the next scheduled window.

Examples

Example 1: New admin orientation. A new marketing manager joins the team and needs to get comfortable with SGEN's admin before touching the live site. On day one they receive a sandbox with a starter template pre-loaded. They spend two days completing four exercises: publish a blog post, create a page with three sections, upload the logo to media, and navigate to Settings to confirm site-wide defaults. By the end of the second day they know where every content area lives in the dashboard. The production admin opens for the first time already familiar.

Example 2: Prototyping a product spotlight layout. A marketing lead wanted to build a recurring page type combining editorial copy, a sourcing map, a tasting notes block, and a buy CTA. They built the full structure in sandbox, published it, reviewed it in the site preview, and revised the page structure twice based on what they saw. The dev team received a finished specification with real content instead of a vague brief. The production build took half the time it would have without the sandbox reference.

Example 3: Pre-promote snapshot saves a bad release. A team finished a wholesale portal build in sandbox — 24 pages, 38 posts, 142 media files — and took a snapshot named "pre-promote 2026-05-25" before firing the promote action. The promote completed, but a third-party payment integration failed to re-authorise correctly under the new production domain. The team re-authorised the integration from the production site's settings while referring to the pre-promote snapshot to confirm the original configuration. The recovery took twenty minutes. Without the snapshot, the team would have been guessing at what the original settings were.

Example 4: Agency client handoff. An agency builds every client site in a sandbox on their own SGEN account. When the client approves the build, the agency promotes the sandbox to a production site, connects the client's domain, and transfers the site to the client's SGEN account. The client receives a live, fully configured site — not a staging URL. The promoted sandbox stays on the agency's account as a project record for six months.

Example 5: Trial-then-buy evaluation. A marketing manager signed up for a SGEN trial, built out a real draft of their site in sandbox during the evaluation period, confirmed the platform fit, and promoted the sandbox to production when the subscription was activated. The work done during the trial became the live site. No re-entry, no re-configuration, no content drift between evaluation and launch.

What to do if it does not work

• Sandbox is not showing in the left navigation.

Sandbox access is available on all paid SGEN plan tiers. If the Sandbox option does not appear in your navigation, confirm with your account administrator that your plan includes sandbox access. If your plan does include it and the option still does not appear, try a hard refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows, Cmd + Shift + R on Mac) and sign out and back in. If it still does not appear, contact SGEN support with your account email.

• The top navigation badge says Sandbox but you expected production.

You are in the wrong environment. Do not save. Do not publish. Close the tab, open your production environment, and verify the badge before continuing. If you already saved in the wrong environment, those changes are in sandbox — not on your production site. You can redo the work in production or use the promote flow if the sandbox version is the one you want.

• Changes appeared on the live site that you intended to be sandbox-only.

You made production changes when you thought you were in sandbox. Check the top navigation badge before every save going forward. For the current situation: if the content should not be live, revert it in production manually. SGEN does not have a one-click undo for published content, but you can edit or unpublish the affected pages immediately.

• Sandbox was auto-archived and you have lost access.

The 30-day inactivity window applies from the last activity date, not the last login. Contact SGEN support to check whether the sandbox can be restored from an archived state.

• You reset the sandbox by mistake.

Sandbox resets are permanent — there is no restore-from-reset. If content was lost in an accidental reset, it cannot be recovered. Going forward: before clicking Reset, take a snapshot or copy any notes you want to preserve. This is one of the reasons the sandbox is described as a specification tool, not a storage tool.

• Snapshot fails midway through.

The most common cause is storage full. Check the storage usage indicator at the top of the snapshots list. If you are at or near the limit, delete one or more snapshots you no longer need, then try again.

• Restore action is greyed out on a snapshot.

A greyed-out Restore typically means the snapshot is in an intermediate state — either still being written or flagged as incomplete. Wait thirty seconds and refresh the page. If it remains greyed out, the snapshot may not have saved completely. Delete it, take a fresh snapshot, and verify the new snapshot shows a non-zero file size.

• The Promote to production button is greyed out.

Two causes: your plan tier is at its production site limit, or your user role does not have promote permissions. Check Settings → Plan and billing for the site count. If the count is the issue, upgrade the plan first. If the role is the issue, ask your account admin to run the promote action.

• The promote completed but some media files are missing.

Large media libraries — especially video files — are moved asynchronously. If you see placeholder images or missing media immediately after promote, wait five to ten minutes and refresh. If files are still missing after fifteen minutes, open a support ticket with the site ID and the name of the missing files.

• Third-party integrations are not working on the production site after promote.

OAuth-based integrations — email marketing platforms, payment processors, CRM connections — are scoped to the domain that authorised them. After promote, re-authorise each integration from the production site's Settings → Integrations using the production domain. This is expected behaviour, not a promote bug.

What success looks like

When you have used the sandbox correctly, these things are true.

• You have a working SGEN environment that looks and behaves like production,

with no live-site risk attached. The Sandbox banner in the header confirms which environment you are in.

• You have published at least one piece of content — a blog post or a page —

and confirmed it appears correctly in the sandbox site preview.

• You know where each content area lives in the dashboard:

Blog, Pages, Custom Objects, Media, Forms, Settings. You have clicked into each one and understand what it manages.

• You have a clear decision about next steps: whether you are ready to move to production,

whether more prototyping is needed, or whether you want to reset and run another exercise.

• You have not shared the sandbox URL externally,

not run live payment tests, and not treated the sandbox as a long-term archive or compliance record.

• If you prototyped something you intend to build in production,

you have notes on the decisions you made — the content types, field names, layout structure — so you can reproduce them without relying on the sandbox as a live reference.

When promote completes correctly and post-promote setup is done, these things are true.

• The new production site appears in Sites under the Production tab with a Live status.
• The sandbox site appears with a Promoted status badge — preserved, not deleted.
• The production site URL is accessible: either the domain you connected

or the temporary SGEN-assigned URL.

• All content from the sandbox is present: pages, posts, media, brand kit, and user accounts.
• Scheduled backups are active.
• SEO defaults are set and the site is crawlable.

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