# Ephemeral Test Inboxes & OTP Extraction API

> Instant ephemeral mailboxes for automated browser testing (Playwright, Puppeteer, Cypress) with sub-150ms OTP and magic link extraction via waitForCode.

Testing authentication, password resets, and signup flows with real emails is notoriously flaky. SadaSend provides instant ephemeral test inboxes with an event-driven waitForCode API—no polling or IMAP scrapers needed.

## Why ephemeral test inboxes matter

Automated end-to-end tests (Playwright, Puppeteer, Cypress) that verify signup or login funnels typically break when testing email delivery. Developers resort to polling third-party IMAP servers, running local test servers with complex networking, or disabling email verification in staging environments.

SadaSend provides instant, cloud-hosted ephemeral mailboxes on `test.sadasend.com` engineered specifically for test suites and browser automation agents.

> Ephemeral inboxes allocate in under 10ms and automatically expire after 60 minutes. Zero test email clutter, zero polling loops.

## The waitForCode API: Sub-150ms OTP extraction

Instead of writing polling loops that wait 5 seconds and check an inbox, your test script calls `waitForCode` which resolves immediately when the message arrives:

```typescript
import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
import { SadaSend } from 'sadasend';

const client = new SadaSend({ apiKey: process.env.SADASEND_API_KEY });

test('User registration with 2FA email verification', async ({ page }) => {
  // 1. Generate an ephemeral test email address
  const testEmail = `user-${Date.now()}@test.sadasend.com`;

  // 2. Trigger your application's signup form in Playwright
  await page.goto('https://staging.acme.ai/signup');
  await page.fill('input[name="email"]', testEmail);
  await page.click('button[type="submit"]');

  // 3. Wait for the 6-digit OTP code to arrive (resolves in < 150ms)
  const result = await client.testing.waitForCode({
    to: testEmail,
    timeoutMs: 15000,
  });

  // 4. Enter the extracted OTP directly into the browser form
  await page.fill('input[name="otp"]', result.otp);
  await page.click('button#verify');

  await expect(page.locator('h1')).toHaveText('Welcome to Acme AI');
});
```

## Python SDK & browser-agent automation

Using autonomous browser agents (such as Claude Code, Cursor, or custom Selenium / Playwright bots in Python)? Extract verification codes effortlessly:

```python
from sadasend import SadaSend

client = SadaSend(api_key="sada_live_sk_...")

# Generates ephemeral inbox and awaits message arrival
verification = client.testing.wait_for_code(
    to="agent-test-44@test.sadasend.com",
    timeout_ms=15000
)

print(f"Extracted 6-digit OTP: {verification.otp}")
print(f"Extracted Magic Link: {verification.magic_link}")
```

## Supported extraction patterns

The `waitForCode` engine automatically extracts and parses the following data types:

• **6-digit & 8-digit OTP verification codes**: e.g. `123456`, `892-104`.

• **Magic Link authentication URLs**: One-time login tokens and verification URLs.

• **Password reset links**: Direct password update links.

• **Raw HTML & Plain Text**: Full message payloads if custom regex matching is required.

## Security & test isolation lifecycle

• **Isolated Namespace**: All test inboxes reside under `*.test.sadasend.com` or custom test domains.

• **Zero Data Leakage**: Test inboxes and extracted messages are automatically purged after 60 minutes.

• **Zero Quota Penalty**: Ephemeral test sends within test sandbox environments do not count against your production reputation score.