The Demo Sandbox Playbook

Let people try the product before signup — without handing over your API quota.

DEMO-SANDBOX-PLAYBOOK.md · 12 sections · 1,964 words · 14 KB · markdown

For products where onboarding friction kills conversion. A no-signup sandbox that runs on your keys, with a global rate-limit bucket that's the non-negotiable part — without it, a botnet rotating IPs drains your provider quota overnight.

What's inside

//Two sandbox patterns: seeded read-only vs live-but-capped
//Anonymous session handling and the sandbox → signup handoff
//Per-IP and global rate-limit buckets (the global one is mandatory)
//Cost ceilings per sandbox run
//Conversion tracking from sandbox use to signup

When to use it

Pre-launch, if onboarding friction is a known conversion gate.

Build these first

App Infrastructure, Customer Analytics

Straight from the file

Default to Option 1. Mixing demo into the production user-state table risks RLS misconfiguration leaking real user content.

Table of contents

0. When to use this spec
1. Three patterns (pick at least one)
2. Architecture
3. Schema considerations
4. Anonymous rate limiting
5. Demo-image manifest
6. Sample-content seeding
7. Conversion gates
8. Branding & UI consistency
9. API key cost management
10. Common pitfalls
11. Kickoff prompt

How to run it

Drop DEMO-SANDBOX-PLAYBOOK.md into your repo, then tell Claude Code: “Read DEMO-SANDBOX-PLAYBOOK.md and implement it in this codebase.” It's written for an agent to execute end to end. Search the file for angle-bracket placeholders and swap in your own project names, domains, and keys before the first run.

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The Demo Sandbox Playbook

Topical Authority

Customer Analytics

SEO/GEO Engine