ar.io DocumentationTestnet Sandbox
The ar.io Testnet Sandbox is a free, public environment where you can build against the entire ar.io stack — uploading, payments, ArNS names, and gateway serving — running on Solana devnet with a staging ARIO token. It's the fastest way to wire up an integration end to end without spending real money or touching mainnet.
It's also an ideal target for AI coding agents and CI: the services are plain HTTP APIs, the tokens are free from a faucet, and nothing you do here can incur real cost or post permanent data. See building with an agent below.
Read this first — the three rules of the sandbox:
- Data is ephemeral. Uploads are served and indexed for a short window (~3 days), then purged. Nothing here is permanent — don't store anything you need to keep.
- Never on-chain. Your data is never posted to mainnet Arweave. The gateway serves it
optimistically, so it returns
x-ar-io-verified: falseand disappears when purged. - Testnet value only. Fund with testnet tokens or Stripe test cards. Real tokens and cards are rejected — and there is no mainnet settlement, so you'd be throwing value away.
What you get
Turbo bundler (upload + payment)
Accepts testnet tokens, issues upload credits, and includes a free tier for small items.
Gateway (ar-io.dev)
Indexes, serves, and GraphQL-queries your uploads, and resolves ArNS names on Solana devnet.
ArNS on devnet
Buy real ArNS names on the devnet registry, paid in staging ARIO, and resolve them at <name>.ar-io.dev.
Faucets
Free devnet SOL, staging ARIO, and Base Sepolia ETH for everything you need to test.
Endpoints
| Service | URL | Health check |
|---|---|---|
| Upload API | https://upload.services.ar-io.dev | GET /v1/info |
| Payment API | https://payment.services.ar-io.dev | GET /v1/info |
| Gateway (serve / resolve / GraphQL) | https://ar-io.dev | GET /ar-io/healthcheck |
| ARIO faucet (staging ARIO) | https://faucet.services.ar-io.dev | GET /healthcheck |
Network: primarily Solana devnet — staging ARIO SPL mint
6vTw5CysRXQ4ybbHkDUiisHWVsBeMtUzYvJqs2iqHyaN (6 decimals). The optional base-eth funding
path and x402 use Base Sepolia.
Point your app at *.services.ar-io.dev and ar-io.dev to exercise the full ar.io stack —
upload, payment, ArNS, and gateway — together. These are shared sandbox endpoints, so treat them
as a testbed rather than a production plane.
Quick start
Get a Solana devnet keypair and a little devnet SOL
SOL covers transaction fees on every Solana action. Airdrop some from
faucet.solana.com or solana airdrop 1 <address> --url devnet.
Claim staging ARIO from the faucet
Sign in with GitHub at faucet.services.ar-io.dev and claim 2,500 ARIO to your Solana address. See Funds & Faucet.
Upload a small file for free
Items up to 105 KiB are eligible for the free tier. Use the Turbo SDK pointed at the
sandbox, or POST /v1/tx. See Uploading & Credits.
Need more? Top up credits with your staging ARIO
Fund upload credits with ario, solana, or base-eth, or Stripe test cards. See
Uploading & Credits.
Buy an ArNS name (≥ 8 characters)
Paid in ARIO credits, provisioned with a custodial ANT so it resolves out of the box. See ArNS Names.
Resolve it
Your name is live at https://<name>.ar-io.dev. See
Accessing Data.
What you must NOT do
- Don't rely on persistence. Treat every upload as disposable (≤ 3 days).
- Don't send mainnet tokens or real cards to the payment service — they're rejected.
- Don't point production apps at these endpoints. This is a shared, wipeable sandbox with reserved short names and rate limits, not a production plane.
- Don't try to defeat the faucet's GitHub gate or the rate limits — they keep the shared testbed usable for everyone.
Building with an agent
The sandbox is a natural fit for AI coding assistants and automated tests — free tokens, plain HTTP endpoints, and no way to spend real value or write permanent data.
One human step: the faucet. The ARIO faucet is GitHub-gated to prevent abuse, and the OAuth consent can't be completed headlessly. The standard pattern is: a human claims once to the wallet address your agent will use, then the agent simply uses the ARIO. After that, uploading, funding, and buying ArNS names are all scriptable API calls. See Funds & Faucet → Agents and CI.
This documentation is also available as machine-readable text (/llms-full.txt) and every page
has an Open in AI action, so you can hand the full sandbox reference to your agent in one
step.
Next steps
Funds & Faucet
Get devnet SOL, staging ARIO, and Base Sepolia ETH
Uploading & Credits
Upload with the Turbo SDK and fund credits with testnet value
ArNS Names
Buy and resolve devnet ArNS names paid in staging ARIO
Accessing Data
Serve, query, and inspect your uploads through the gateway
Reference
Program IDs, the ARIO mint, and the responses you'll see
Get Help
Ask in the ar.io Discord
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