Going live

Live and sandbox behave the same, so going live is a change of base URL and key. Before you switch, check your integration against this list.

Checklist#

• Every outcome is handled. You have tested all four decisions and needs_manual_review on the test carriers.
• Failures are handled. 404 tells the user the carrier was not found; 503 and 429 rate_limit_exceeded are retried with backoff; anything else is logged with its request_id.
• Timeouts are set. Allow up to 30 seconds per request, and decide what your product does when the score cannot be fetched: hold the tender, or send it to a person.
• Keys are secret. The live key lives in your server's secret store, not in code, browsers or mobile apps.
• Unknown values are tolerated. New fields, flags or severities do not break your code. See Versioning.
• The quota is watched. You alert on X-Quota-Remaining before it reaches zero.
• Results are stored. You keep the score, decision, model_version and calculated_at with each booking decision, so you can show later why a carrier was approved.

Switch#

	Sandbox	Live
Base URL	https://sandbox-api.dollartraq.com	https://api.dollartraq.com
Key	dt_test_…	dt_live_…

Make both configurable, so the same code runs in both environments:

DT_SCORE_BASE_URL=https://api.dollartraq.com
DT_SCORE_KEY=dt_live_…

Check the live key with GET /v1/usage before your first score lookup. It does not use quota.

After launch#

• Live responses have "livemode": true and a DT-Environment: live header. If you see false, a sandbox key is still in use.
• Every live score returned uses one request from your monthly quota.
• Keep your sandbox key. Use it in your test suites and staging environments, where it costs nothing.