generated: '2026-09-03'
method: searched
source: >-
  https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/admin-trial-account and https://signup.snowflake.com/
  (200, checked 2026-09-03), plus inspection of the harvested contracts in openapi/ for any
  test-mode discriminator.
provider: Snowflake
providerId: snowflake

has_sandbox: partial
summary: >-
  Snowflake ships NO test mode. There is no test-vs-live key prefix, no test/live toggle on a
  credential, no hosted test tokens, no test clocks and no fixture or trigger tooling anywhere in
  the API. What exists is a time-boxed free trial ACCOUNT — a real, production Snowflake account
  with a usage balance, not an isolated sandbox. Anything an agent does against a trial account
  is a real operation against real compute and real storage.

trial:
  name: Snowflake free trial
  signup: https://signup.snowflake.com/
  docs: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/admin-trial-account
  duration: >-
    "The trial continues for 30 days (from the sign-up date) or until you've depleted your free
    usage balance, whichever occurs first."
  credits: null
  credits_note: >-
    A free usage balance is granted, but the trial documentation page does not state a dollar or
    credit figure, so none is recorded here. Marketing pages have quoted a figure at various
    times; because it is not on the documented trial page it is not treated as published.
  choices: >-
    At sign-up you select cloud platform, region and Snowflake Edition. The documentation notes
    these choices affect how quickly the free usage balance is exhausted.
  expiry_behaviour: >-
    "At the end of the trial, the account is suspended. You can still log into a suspended
    account, but you cannot use any features, such as running a virtual warehouse, loading data,
    or performing queries."
  reactivation: >-
    "To reactivate a suspended trial account, you must enter a credit card, which converts it to
    a paid account."

test_mode:
  exists: false
  key_prefixes: none
  key_prefix_note: >-
    Snowflake credentials carry no environment discriminator. The four schemes (KeyPair,
    ExternalOAuth, SnowflakeOAuth, ProgrammaticAccessToken) are identical in shape whether the
    account is a trial or a production Business Critical deployment. A client cannot tell from
    the credential which it is holding — the only signal is the account host.
  test_fixtures: none
  time_simulation: none
  triggers: none

isolation_patterns:
  note: >-
    Snowflake's answer to "how do I test safely" is account and object isolation rather than a
    test mode. These are real, documented practices, not a sandbox API, and are recorded as
    such.
  patterns:
    - name: Separate dev/test accounts within an organization
      mechanism: >-
        Organizations create additional accounts (createAccount, POST /api/v2/accounts) for dev
        and test, isolated by account boundary and billed separately.
      operations: [createAccount, listAccounts, deleteAccount, UndropAccount]
    - name: Zero-copy clone
      mechanism: >-
        cloneDatabase / cloneSchema / cloneTable / cloneDynamicTable / cloneStream /
        cloneSequence / cloneAlert / cloneDatabaseRole create a metadata-only copy that shares
        storage until written. The standard way to get a realistic test dataset without copying
        it.
      operations: [cloneDatabase, cloneSchema, cloneTable, cloneDynamicTable, cloneIcebergTable, cloneStream, cloneSequence, cloneAlert, cloneDatabaseRole]
    - name: Time Travel and UNDROP
      mechanism: >-
        A mistake inside the retention window is reversible. See the reversibility block in
        conventions/snowflake-conventions.yml.
    - name: Spark Connect analyzePlan
      mechanism: >-
        POST /api/v2/spark-connect/analyze-plan analyses a plan without executing it. The only
        rehearsal surface in the whole corpus, and it is Spark-specific.
      operations: [analyzePlan]

agent_note: >-
  This matters for agent safety. There is no environment in which an agent can safely rehearse a
  Snowflake write. Every call bills, every DROP is real (recoverable only inside the account's
  Time Travel window, which defaults to ONE day), and dry-run does not exist. An agent operating
  against Snowflake should be pointed at a dedicated non-production account and given a role
  whose grants scope the damage, because the API itself provides no other guard rail.

cross_references:
  conventions: conventions/snowflake-conventions.yml
  authentication: authentication/snowflake-authentication.yml
  plans: plans/snowflake-plans-pricing.yml