# Testing centre

The Testing centre is where people check an agent before visitors meet it. It has two tabs: **Live Preview**, a read-only chat with any chat agent your role may test, and **Test Suites**, automated conversations scored after each run. Nothing you do there changes an agent.

Use it when someone outside the team that builds agents needs to try them: a manager approving a change, a partner checking their own wording, a QA tester. They chat with the agent the way a visitor would, on the real engine, and cannot open its settings.

## What you'll need

- **To use Live Preview:** a role with one of **Preview Chat Agents (Live Preview)** (`agents:chat:preview`), **Use Chat Agents** or **Manage Chat Agents**, and the chat agent inside that role's agent list (see [Choose which agents a role can test](#choose-which-agents-a-role-can-test)).
- **To use Test Suites:** **View Test Suites & Results** (`testing:suites:read`); to create, edit or run them, **Create, Edit & Run Test Suites** (`testing:suites:manage`).
- **To choose which agents a role reaches:** a role that can manage roles, which tenant admins have.

## Chat with an agent in Live Preview

**Agents → Workflows → Testing centre**, then the **Live Preview** tab.

1. Pick an agent in the list on the left. Each one shows whether it is **Live** or **Not live**, and **Draft has changes** when the saved draft differs from the live copy, or **No draft** when only the live copy exists.
2. Above the chat, choose **Draft** (the saved draft) or **Live** (the copy visitors talk to). Switching starts a new conversation.
3. Type a message. The agent answers with its real tools, knowledge and memory, and the **Tool activity** panel under the chat shows each tool it called, with what it sent and what came back.
4. To start over, press the reset arrow at the top of the chat.

The line under the message box says which copy you are chatting with and where this test's emails and texts go (next section).

Your conversation belongs to you: another person cannot open or continue it. Someone who can edit the agent sees an **Edit agent** button beside its name; everyone else only chats.

<!-- SCREENSHOT: knowledge/testing-centre-live-preview.png — Testing centre, Live Preview tab on the Demo tenant: agent list with Live / Draft has changes chips, the Draft | Live switch, a short conversation, the footer line about test emails -->

## What a test chat does with emails and texts

A test is a real conversation on the real engine, so an agent can try to email a summary, text a link or save a contact during it. Each chat agent decides what happens, under **Access & testing → Test conversations → Emails and texts from test chats** on the agent's form:

| Option | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Send them to the person testing, marked [TEST]** (default) | Every email or text goes to whoever is testing, to the email address and phone number on their login. The subject or text starts with **[TEST]** and names who it was meant for. Copies and blind copies are not sent. |
| **Send them to the real recipients** | They go where the agent addressed them, as in a live chat. Use it for an end-to-end check of real delivery. The tab shows a **Real sends** badge while this is on. |
| **Do not send them** | Nothing is sent, and the agent is told so, so it can say so in the chat. |

Whichever you choose:

- **A contact the test chat creates is tagged "Test chat"**, so it is never mistaken for a lead and is easy to find and remove. A contact that already existed is not tagged.
- **Workflows do not start from a test chat**, unless the agent sends for real. Each orchestration it would have started records a *trigger-skipped* line in its history.
- **The chat summary sent when a test chat closes** follows the same choice: to the person testing, marked [TEST], or nowhere.
- **Test chats are not counted** in the dashboard, Conversation Insights, the Agents page, reports or billing.

If the person testing has no email address on their login, test emails are not sent; with no phone number, test texts are not sent. The agent is told why in both cases.

The setting is a field like any other: it reaches the live copy when you push the agent live.

## Choose which agents a role can test

There are two places to do this, and they change the same setting.

**From the role:** **Settings (the gear icon) → Access & security → Roles & Permissions** *(sign-in required)*, then open a role.

1. Tick the agent permissions the role needs, for example **Preview Chat Agents (Live Preview)**.
2. Under **Which agents**, for each agent type the role has a permission on, choose **All chat agents** (the default) or **Only the ones I choose**.
3. With **Only the ones I choose**, tick the agents. Saving with none ticked is refused, because no list means every agent.
4. Click **Save Changes**. The role's row then reads, for example, *2 chat agents only*.

**From the agent:** open the chat agent, then the **Access & testing** tab, **Who can reach this agent**. It lists every role with a key for chat agents, what each may do (use, test, edit), and whether it reaches every agent or a chosen list. On a role with a chosen list, **Includes this agent** adds or removes this agent. A role that reaches every agent is limited on the Roles page. Removing the last agent from a role's list is refused: it would give the role every agent.

Today the list limits **testing**: Live Preview and test suites. Opening and editing agents still follow a role's permissions for every agent of that type; that changes in a later release.

## Test Suites

**Agents → Workflows → Testing centre**, then the **Test Suites** tab. A suite runs scripted conversations against an agent and scores each one. Open a suite to see its runs, and a run to see each test, its score and the evaluator's feedback. The list shows only suites whose agent your role may test.

## Troubleshooting

**The Testing centre is not in my Agents menu.** Your role holds none of the chat permissions or the test-suite permission, or the workspace has both the chat and voice modules switched off. Ask a tenant admin.

**An agent I expected is not in the list.** Your role lists its agents and this one is not among them. An admin can add it on the role, or from the agent's **Access & testing** tab.

**"This agent has no draft to test yet."** The agent exists only as its live copy. Choose **Live**, or ask someone who manages chat agents to open the agent once.

**I did not receive the test email.** Check that your login has an email address and that the agent's setting is the first option. The tool result in **Tool activity** says where the email went, or why it was not sent.

## Related

- [Chat agents overview](/help/chat-agents/overview)
- [Training the AI](/help/knowledge/training-overview)