Pin yourself to one variant for a whole browsing session. Not yet available. Here is what the tab does today and what to use instead.
Forced variation is not available yet. The Forced Variation tab exists
in the preview modal, but it currently shows a “Shipping next” placeholder
rather than a working control. It needs a snippet update to read the force
cookie, and that update has not shipped.Nothing on this page describes behaviour you can use today. For QA that works
right now, use preview links, which already persist
across pages for an hour.
The Forced Variation tab as it ships today: a placeholder, not a control.
Preview links force one variant on the pages you open with the link. Forced
variation is planned to go further: pin you into a variant for a whole browsing
session, across every page you visit, by writing a cookie on your domain that
the snippet reads on each page load.The intended uses are the ones a preview link serves less well:
Walking a stakeholder through the site, so they can click around inside
the variant rather than looking at one page.
QA on flows that span several pages, where you want to enter the funnel
in Variant B and reach the end without re managing the link.
Reproducing an issue reported against a specific variant.
A preview link already covers most of this. Once you open one, preview mode
persists across pages in the same browser tab for up to one hour, even on
URLs that do not carry the parameter, so you can click through a multi step
flow and keep seeing your variant. See
Staying in preview as you click around.The differences that remain, and that forced variation is meant to close, are
that preview mode is scoped to the tab you opened the link in and expires after
an hour.
When forced variation ships, this page will document the real control, the
cookie’s actual lifetime, and how it interacts with the visitor opt out. Until
then, treat any description of session length or clearing behaviour as
unspecified rather than assuming it matches preview mode.Last verified against the shipped dashboard and snippet on 2026-09-01.
