Salesforce has so much terminology it can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning. I am starting a series of short posts to help me learn the definitions.

Scratch Orgs

A disposable deployment of Salesforce code and metadata. scratch orgs are used to:

• Start a new project or a new feature branch.
• Test a new feature.
• Start automated testing.
• Perform development tasks directly in an org.

You can read more in the scratch org docs