> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://nginxle.onepub.dev/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://nginxle.onepub.dev/certificate-management/staging-test-certificates.md).

# Staging (test) certificates

Lets Encrypt puts fairly tight constraints on the number of times you can request a certificate for a given domain (5 per day).

During testing we recommend that you use a Lets Encrypt staging certificate as the limits are much higher.

You can select a staging certificate via the `nginx-le config` command or setting the `PRODUCTION` environment variable to false when creating your docker container.


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