Test against mock brands, not real ones
The requirementstatement
Non-production submissions should use mock brands so fees are not charged and duplicate detection is not polluted.
- Severityseverity
- LowLOWBest practice. Worth fixing, rarely fatal on its own.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- brand.mock
- Where it liveslayer
- BrandBRAND
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- DeterministicDETERMINISTIC
- Settled in code from the values you submitted. No model involved, no judgement call, same answer every time.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD
- A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
- Who requires itauthorities
- TwilioTelnyx
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
A test registration is a real registration: it charges the fee, it consumes the identity fields, and it lands in the duplicate index — so the real submission that follows collides with the rehearsal. Mock brands exist precisely for this and cost nothing, but they are opt-in and easy to miss during an integration.
How to fix itremediation
Set the mock flag on every non-production submission, and use test rather than real identity values inside it. Done when no fee is charged and the real EIN, website and email have not been consumed by a rehearsal.
A compliant exampleexample
mock: true on every integration and staging submission
Notesnotes
Absorbs OPS-350, which states the same testing practice and the constraints mock records carry — a mock brand does not verify and cannot carry live campaigns, so it proves the integration rather than the registration. Nothing in a submission says whether it is a rehearsal, so a real brand with no mock flag passes: the check reports only the shape it can see.
Rules you will hit next
Other brand rules at the same severity. A registration is judged as a whole, not rule by rule.
BRD-204 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.