Scratch Org
A temporary, source-driven Salesforce environment created on demand and discarded when its work is done.
Definition
A scratch org is a temporary, source-driven Salesforce environment, defined by a scratch org definition file and created on demand from a Dev Hub, that exists purely to build and test metadata before it's discarded (default lifespan is 7 days, extendable up to 30).
Because a scratch org is created fresh from source and a chosen edition or feature set, it's ideal for isolated development and CI test runs; nothing carries over between orgs except what's explicitly pushed from version control. This makes scratch orgs fast to reset but slow to spin up when a Dev Hub is under load, and teams often hit daily org creation limits during busy sprints.
Data has to be loaded manually or through a seeding step, since scratch orgs start essentially empty. Our Salesforce DevOps guide covers where scratch orgs fit in a typical Salesforce release process.
How it works in Serpent
Serpent pools pre-warmed scratch orgs so developers get a ready environment in seconds instead of waiting on Dev Hub provisioning, and manages org creation limits across the team automatically. Org definitions, data seeding, and metadata push happen as part of task setup, so a new scratch org is usable immediately rather than empty. Serpent also manages sandboxes alongside scratch orgs from the same dashboard, so teams aren't juggling separate tooling for each org type. See org and scratch org management in Serpent for details.
Scratch Org, answered
Start free. No credit card, no install, no commitment.
Set up in under 15 minutes. No DevOps hire needed.