persona local dev loop | sed 's/\b(.)/\u\1/g'

Overview

Sandbox testing with test inquiry templates, ngrok tunnel for webhook testing, mock API responses for CI.

Prerequisites

Completed persona-install-auth setup
Valid Persona API key (sandbox or production)

Instructions

Step 1: Set Up Sandbox Environment

set -euo pipefail
# Use sandbox API key for all development
echo 'PERSONA_API_KEY=persona_sandbox_xxxxxxxx' > .env
echo 'PERSONA_API_VERSION=2023-01-05' >> .env

Step 2: Expose Local Webhooks with ngrok

# Terminal 1: Start your webhook server
npm run dev  # localhost:3000

# Terminal 2: Tunnel with ngrok
ngrok http 3000
# Copy the HTTPS URL and configure in Persona Dashboard > Webhooks

Step 3: Create Test Inquiries

import os, requests

HEADERS = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['PERSONA_API_KEY']}",
    "Persona-Version": "2023-01-05",
}

# Create inquiry with sandbox template
resp = requests.post("https://withpersona.com/api/v1/inquiries", headers=HEADERS, json={
    "data": {
        "attributes": {
            "inquiry-template-id": "itmpl_YOUR_SANDBOX_TEMPLATE",
            "reference-id": f"test-{int(time.time())}",
        }
    }
})
print(f"Test inquiry: {resp.json()['data']['id']}")

Step 4: Mock API Responses for CI

import { vi } from 'vitest';

const mockPersonaApi = {
  createInquiry: vi.fn().mockResolvedValue({
    data: { id: 'inq_test_123', attributes: { status: 'created', 'session-token': 'tok_xxx' } },
  }),
  getInquiry: vi.fn().mockResolvedValue({
    data: { id: 'inq_test_123', attributes: { status: 'completed' } },
  }),
};

Output

Sandbox environment configured for development
ngrok tunnel for webhook testing
Test inquiry creation workflow
Mock API responses for unit tests

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Solution
Webhook not received	ngrok URL not configured	Update webhook URL in Dashboard
Sandbox key rejected	Using production key	Verify key starts with `persona_sandbox_`
Template not found	Wrong environment	Templates are per-environment

Resources

Next Steps

Apply SDK patterns: persona-sdk-patterns