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New Netlify projects are private by default. A private project sends every visitor to a Sign in to Netlify page (app.netlify.com/edge-access), and only members of your Netlify team can get past it. QA.tech is not a member of your team, so crawls and tests stop at that page with a 401. Netlify has no bypass secret for automation like Vercel’s, and QA.tech cannot sign in with a Netlify team login. Pick one of the options below instead.

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How to tell

Your site is behind Netlify visitor access when one of these is true:
  • Opening the URL in a private browser window shows Sign in to Netlify or a Netlify password page.
  • The QA.tech crawl or test fails with 401 and the message Blocked by Netlify visitor access.
  • The response has server: Netlify and status 401.

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Make the project public

1

Open visitor access

In Netlify, open the project and go to Project configuration → General → Visitor access → Project visibility. On Enterprise and older plans this card is called Password Protection.
2

Choose Public

Select Edit visibility, then Public, and save.
3

Keep previews private (optional)

To keep Deploy Previews and branch deploys private, choose Previews only (Non-production deploys only on older plans) and point the QA.tech environment at your production URL.
4

Crawl again

Ask the QA.tech chat to crawl again, or re-run the failed test.

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Use a shared password

On Netlify Pro you can protect the site with one shared password instead of team login. Netlify then shows a password form, and a QA.tech login test can type the password into it like any other login.
1

Switch to Password

In Netlify, go to Project configuration → General → Visitor access → Project visibility, select Edit visibility, choose Password, and enter a password. On older plans, choose Basic password protection under Password Protection.
2

Store the password in QA.tech

Add the password as a Config, or give it to the QA.tech chat when it asks for login details.
3

Create a login test

Create a test that opens the site, enters the password on the Netlify page, and checks that the app loads. Make your other tests depend on it, so they start from its signed-in state. See Dependencies.
The chat sets this up for you during onboarding: tell it the password and it creates and runs the login test.

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Basic auth in _headers

A Basic-Auth rule in your site’s _headers file is HTTP basic auth, not visitor access. Add the username and password as environment basic auth on the QA.tech environment.

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Pull request previews

Deploy Previews follow the same visibility setting. If previews must stay private, use a shared password scoped to previews, or test pull requests on a public staging deploy after merge. External: Netlify Password Protection