---
title: Personas
description: Manage persona variables and secrets for Smoketest tests from the CLI.
---

# Personas

Personas hold variables for a project. Use them for URLs, test accounts, feature flags, and secrets that tests need at runtime.

## Create a Persona

```bash
smoketest personas create \
  --project "Production" \
  --name staging \
  --var BASE_URL=https://staging.example.com
```

If you have a default project set with `smoketest projects use`, `--project` can be omitted.

## Add secrets

Prompt securely for a secret value:

```bash
smoketest personas set staging API_TOKEN --secret
```

For automation, pass `KEY=value`:

```bash
smoketest personas set staging API_TOKEN=secret-value --secret
```

Passing secrets as command arguments can expose them to shell history, process lists, terminal logs, or CI output. Prefer the masked prompt for local interactive use.

## Plain variables

```bash
smoketest personas set staging BASE_URL=https://staging.example.com
smoketest personas unset staging BASE_URL
```

Plain variables are visible in persona output. Secrets are marked as sensitive and their values are not printed back.

## List and inspect

```bash
smoketest personas list --project "Production"
smoketest personas get staging
```

Persona arguments accept a full ID, short ID, or exact persona name.

## Edit as JSON

```bash
smoketest personas edit staging --editor
```

Editor mode opens the persona variable set as JSON. For unchanged sensitive variables, leave out the `value` field so the stored secret is preserved.

## Delete

```bash
smoketest personas delete staging
smoketest personas delete staging --yes
```

Deleting a Persona does not delete tests, but tests that referenced the persona need to be updated before they can use those variables again.

Add `--description "Admin can manage billing and team access"` when creating a Persona. Use `personas edit` to update its description.