I started testing on the pts yesterday and first thing I did was copy my saved variables from live into an addon on pts so it does not always revert to the defaults.
Here are the steps I followed:
1) Copy the SavedVariables to pts/AddOns/0SavedVariables
2) Remove all unwanted files (e.g. ZO_Ingame.lua and unused addons)
3) Search and replace the live character name in all files with the pts character name
4) Open a command window and dump all filenames into 0SavedVariables.txt (dir /B > 0SavedVariables.txt)
5) Add an addon header to the beginning of 0SavedVariables.txt
Code:
## Title: 0SavedVariables
## Author: myself
## Version: 0
## APIVersion: 100012
No idea if the 0 in front of the name influences the loading order. If it does not work, maybe add a DependsOn entry to the addon that does not accept it this way.