Authenticated competitive messaging agent

This page explains how an authenticated competitive messaging agent accesses authorized competitor, channel, or storefront pages under delegated user authority and creates a reviewable messaging brief. After reading it, you will understand which modules this scenario needs, how the permission boundary narrows, and why brand positioning and forbidden claims belong in a policy store rather than Memory.

Use case

Marketing, sales, or channel teams need to inspect member pricing, regional pricing, promotions, inventory, product claims, or partner portal content visible only after sign-in. These pages have no public API, manual checks are slow and incomplete, and handing an employee's credentials to a script grants the full account's authority in one shot — with no way to tell afterwards who did what.

Typical triggers:

• A competitor changes pricing or launches a product, and the battlecard must be updated within a business day.
• A channel promotion window opens, and member pricing and inventory must be verified across several storefronts.
• A new-market evaluation needs claims that are only visible after sign-in.

Engineering challenges

• The target data sits behind login walls and keeps changing: member pricing, regional promotions, and inventory have no public API, page structures and prices shift with promotion windows, and manual checks cannot keep pace with battlecard updates.
• Borrowed employee sessions concentrate risk: whatever the account can see, the script can see — customer data and order entry points outside the research scope have no boundary at all, and the extraction shows up in the target site's logs under the employee's identity.
• Facts need sources and timestamps: competitor pricing changes at any time; a "fact" in the brief without a source URL and capture time cannot be verified a week later, and the battlecard's credibility keeps decaying.

Module composition

Module	Role	Notes
GenAuth	Core	Read-only delegation, revocation, and the audit chain for the specified competitor domains; the delegation acts only for the current user or workspace.
Web Agent	Core	The user completes sign-in inside the controlled browser session (Profiles can reuse login state), then pricing, promotions, inventory, and claims are extracted page by page, keeping a source URL and screenshot per fact.
GUMem	Not used	Battlecards and messaging playbooks (for example, comparison frames proven to work) are team knowledge assets, managed by version in your policy store or battlecard store; this scenario has no genuine user-level long-term memory.

Permission and delegation boundaries

The Agent holds no inherent permissions. The effective authority for each research task is the intersection of three sets: what the user actually holds ∩ what was explicitly delegated for this task ∩ what the enterprise has approved. Applied to this scenario:

• The delegated scope covers only "read page content on the specified competitor domains" — no form submission, purchasing, or account settings.
• Delegation credentials are short-lived; minute-level validity is recommended for a single research task. Expiry is the norm, not an exception.
• The user or an administrator can revoke the grant at any time; new page extraction requests fail immediately after revocation.
• Out-of-scope attempts (for example, a customer-privacy page outside the delegation) are rejected and recorded — the audit chain covers all attempts, not just successful actions.

Note: this sample requests doAnything product permissions. Your application and downstream services must configure and enforce business limits such as domain lists, page types, action whitelists. Product scopes and prompt rules do not enforce those detailed limits; this sample does not configure them. See Delegate token and attenuation.

Workflow

1. The user selects the competitors, channels, or products to research and confirms the interactive authorization in Qoni Console.

2. GenAuth issues a least-privilege delegation credential for this task.

3. Your app loads the current version of brand positioning, competitor mappings, and forbidden claims from the policy store and injects them into the task.

4. Web Agent opens the target pages; on first access the user completes sign-in in the controlled session, and later runs can reuse login state through Profiles.

   Checkpoint: When a login wall, CAPTCHA, or risk-control page appears, the Web Agent should escalate to a human instead of silently bypassing it.

5. Web Agent extracts authorized pricing, promotions, inventory, and claims page by page, keeping source URLs and screenshots; public context can be cross-checked with WebSearch.

6. Your app validates the output contract: facts missing a source URL are dropped.

7. The Agent returns a messaging brief and battlecard draft with a source list, the policy version, and an audit id; verified facts are archived to your battlecard storage.

   Checkpoint: Every competitive fact in the brief should trace back to a concrete page source; conclusions without evidence should not enter the deliverable.

Example code

This example uses @qoniai/qoni 0.9.0, published on npm. The download includes the same SDK version, installed with npm ci. The demo reads the official Firefox product page and treats Mozilla Firefox as the competitor to inspect. The SDK reads real public pages; business inputs in scenarios.ts are labeled public-demo.

This demo does not read or write GUMem; its task uses the supplied page list and explicit business inputs. DoAnything opens the supplied pages and produces the scenario output. Supply your own JSON with --input; use --interactive when the user must consent to delegation. For site sign-in and user responses, see Qoni SDK.

Download the complete runnable examples, or run from the documentation repository:

cd examples/qoni
npm ci
npm run case -- authenticated-competitive-messaging-agent
# Supply your own inputs
npm run case -- authenticated-competitive-messaging-agent --input /path/to/input.json

Set server-side QONI_ACCESS_KEY and QONI_SECRET_KEY. QONI_USER_ID can identify your application's current GenAuth user; the local demo otherwise selects a user from the bound pool. Demonstration Memory writes use an isolated user rather than changing a business user's preferences.

This scenario's executable entry point:

import { cliOptions } from '../runtime.js'
import { inputFile, runScenario } from '../run-case.js'

// Extract competitor facts supported by visible page text.
const report = await runScenario('authenticated-competitive-messaging-agent', cliOptions(), inputFile())
// report.items: competitor names, facts, quotations, and source URLs.
// Validated fields: competitor, fact, quote, sourceUrl.
console.log(JSON.stringify(report, null, 2))

The entry point loads the definition below by scenario ID. The code is included directly from scenarios.ts, with comments shown in the page language: the task, output fields, source field, Web Search queries (if any), whether Memory is used, and the demonstration input. The pipeline appends the input data, search sources, recalled Memory, and shared safety constraints to the task to build the final prompt; see the pipeline below for the full assembly.

// Extract competitor facts supported by visible page text.
browser('authenticated-competitive-messaging-agent',
  'Read the supplied competitor pages and extract one supported product claim per page. Return [{competitor,fact,quote,sourceUrl}]. Keep visible quotations and source URLs. These demo pages are public; production account pages require user login.',
  ['competitor','fact','quote','sourceUrl'], 'sourceUrl', sample([firefox], { competitor: 'Mozilla Firefox' })),

The sample implements runScenario(), browser(), research(), and sample() as application functions. The pipeline below makes the actual SDK calls: delegation and introspection → required Memory/search → browser task or monitor → validation and saving. fields and sourceField define the application's output checks. The complete application helpers are in the package's runtime.ts.

Inspect the actual SDK pipeline

// browser() uses DoAnything; research() searches first; sample() labels public-demo inputs.
const firefox = 'https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/'
const manifesto = 'https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/'
const privacy = 'https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/'
const support = 'https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/get-started-firefox-overview-main-features'
// These copy rules become prompt context; server permissions and business checks remain separate.
const policy = {
  version: 'demo-2026-09',
  approvedClaims: ['Describe only features supported by the cited page.'],
  forbiddenClaims: ['guaranteed security', '100% private', 'unverified pricing or performance'],
  voice: 'concise and warm',
}
const sample = (pages: string[], business: JsonObject = {}): JsonObject => ({
  dataset: 'public-demo', pages, policy, business,
  notice: 'Business records are synthetic demonstration inputs. Referenced websites and SDK execution are real.',
})
// fields lists required output keys; sourceField identifies URL checks; memory enables GUMem calls.
const browser = (id: string, task: string, fields: string[], sourceField: string | undefined, input: JsonObject, memory = false): Scenario => ({
  id, products: ['doAnything'], task, fields, sourceField, input, memory,
})
const research = (id: string, task: string, fields: string[], sourceField: string, queries: string[], input: JsonObject, memory = false): Scenario => ({
  id, products: ['webSearch', 'doAnything'], task, fields, sourceField, queries, input, memory,
})

import { QoniScopes, type JsonObject, type RunResult } from '@qoniai/qoni'
import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs'
import { getScenario, type Scenario } from './scenarios.js'
import { appendTrace, checkInputCoverage, cleanupDemoUser, createContext, delegate, handleInteraction, inputEntryCount, isolateDemoUser, object, readWithRetry, renderScreenshot,
  save, saveArtifacts, searchHits, settled, settleRun, validateItems, withCleanup, type Context, type Options } from './runtime.js'

export async function runScenario(id: string, options: Options = {}, input?: JsonObject) {
  // Load the task definition by ID; --input replaces its business inputs.
  const scenario = getScenario(id)
  const data = input ?? scenario.input
  if (scenario.memory && data.dataset !== 'public-demo' && options.mode !== 'interactive' && !options.userId && !process.env.QONI_USER_ID) {
    throw new Error('Business Memory writes require the current QONI_USER_ID; do not select an arbitrary bound user')
  }
  const context = await createContext(id, { ...options,
    skipUserResolution: scenario.memory && data.dataset === 'public-demo' })
  return withCleanup(context, async register => {
    register('isolated demonstration user', () => cleanupDemoUser(context))
    // Isolate demo preferences; business Memory belongs to the identified current user.
    if (scenario.memory && data.dataset === 'public-demo') await isolateDemoUser(context)
    return await executeScenario(context, scenario, data)
  })
}

export async function executeScenario(context: Context, scenario: Scenario, input: JsonObject) {
  const pages = input.pages
  if (!Array.isArray(pages) || !pages.length || pages.some(page => typeof page !== 'string' || !/^https:\/\//.test(page))) {
    throw new Error('Input pages must be an array of HTTPS URLs')
  }
  if (input.requiresLogin === true && context.mode !== 'interactive') {
    throw new Error('Targets that require sign-in need --interactive and user-controlled login')
  }
  const memoryScopes = scenario.memory
    ? [QoniScopes.GUMEM_MEMORY_READ, QoniScopes.GUMEM_MEMORY_WRITE, QoniScopes.GUMEM_MESSAGE_WRITE] : []
  // delegate() is an application helper around the SDK delegation methods.
  const grant = await delegate(context, scenario.id, scenario.products, memoryScopes)
  // Read the effective scopes; readWithRetry() retries only retryable read failures.
  const { data: tokenInfo } = await readWithRetry(context, 'delegation introspection',
    () => context.qoni.genauth.introspectDelegationToken({ token: grant.token }))
  const info = object(tokenInfo)
  if (info.active !== true) throw new Error('The delegation token is not active')
  const audit = { grantId: grant.grantId, auditId: grant.auditId, scopes: info.scope }
  let memory: unknown
  if (scenario.memory) {
    // A Session associates this conversation with the user; the app chooses sessionId.
    const sessionId = `${scenario.id}-${Date.now()}`
    await context.qoni.gumem.createSession({
      token: grant.token, userId: context.userId, sessionId, title: scenario.id,
    })
    const preferences = object(input.business ?? {}).confirmedPreferences
    if (Array.isArray(preferences) && preferences.length) {
      // Store confirmed preferences only; sync: true requests synchronous processing.
      await context.qoni.gumem.addMessages({ token: grant.token, userId: context.userId, sessionId, sync: true,
        messages: [{ role: 'user', content: `Confirmed demonstration preferences: ${preferences.join('; ')}` }] })
    }
    // Recall relevant preferences for the later task prompt.
    memory = (await readWithRetry(context, 'GUMem recall', () => context.qoni.gumem.recall({ token: grant.token, sessionId,
      query: 'Confirmed preferences relevant to this task', details: true }))).data
    save(context, 'memory.json', { sessionId, context: memory })
    if (Array.isArray(preferences) && preferences.length && !preferences.every(value => JSON.stringify(memory).includes(String(value)))) {
      throw new Error('Recall did not include the confirmed preferences just written by this demo')
    }
  }

  if (scenario.products.includes('track')) return runMonitor(context, scenario, input, grant.token, audit)

  let hits: ReturnType<typeof searchHits> = []
  if (scenario.queries) {
    // Web Search returns results[]; DoAnything receives these sources to inspect.
    const search = await context.qoni.webSearch.run({ token: grant.token, prompt: scenario.queries, maxResultsPerQuery: 3 })
    save(context, 'search-ref.json', { runId: search.id, audit })
    await withCleanup(context, async register => {
      register('Web Search run', () => search.cancel('Documentation demonstration cleanup'))
      const result = await settleRun(context, search)
      save(context, 'search-result.json', result)
      settled(result)
      hits = searchHits(result.output)
    })
  }

  // One-per-entry scenarios request exactly one item per input entry; others at most two.
  const requiredItems = inputEntryCount(scenario.id, input)
  // Assemble the task, inputs, search sources, and Memory as application-defined context.
  const prompt = [scenario.task, `Task inputs: ${JSON.stringify(input)}`,
    `Search sources: ${JSON.stringify(hits)}`, `Confirmed memory: ${JSON.stringify(memory ?? null)}`,
    `Actual collection time: ${new Date().toISOString()}`,
    requiredItems === undefined
      ? 'Inspect the supplied sources. Return at most two items in the requested JSON array, without prose or Markdown.'
      : `Inspect the supplied sources. Return exactly ${requiredItems} item${requiredItems === 1 ? '' : 's'} in the requested JSON array, one per input entry, without prose or Markdown.`,
    'Keep synthetic demonstration data identified as synthetic. Do not send messages, publish, pay, edit accounts or submit forms.',
    input.requiresLogin === true ? 'Request user sign-in through an interaction when required; never enter credentials yourself.' : 'Public demonstration sources only; do not sign in.',
  ].join('\n\n')
  // Start the Agent with this grant; capture receives delivered screenshots, not every step.
  const run = await context.qoni.doAnything.run({ token: grant.token, prompt, capture: { screenshots: true } })
  save(context, 'run-ref.json', { runId: run.id, session: run.sessionRef, audit })
  let result: RunResult
  const trace = (event: { type: string; data: unknown }) => {
    context.eventCounts[event.type] = (context.eventCounts[event.type] ?? 0) + 1
    if (['progress','message','done'].includes(event.type)) appendTrace(context, event)
    if (event.type === 'browserLiveUrlChanged') {
      const liveUrl = object(event.data).liveUrl
      if (typeof liveUrl === 'string') context.browserUrl = liveUrl
    }
  }
  return withCleanup(context, async register => {
    register('DoAnything run', () => run.cancel('Documentation demonstration cleanup'))
    if (context.delivery === 'events') {
      // --events streams updates; wrap interaction data in an SDK handle for user handling.
      for await (const event of run.events({ signal: AbortSignal.any([context.abort.signal, AbortSignal.timeout(context.timeoutMs)]) })) {
        trace(event)
        if (event.type === 'screenshot') renderScreenshot(context, event.image)
        if (event.type === 'interaction') await handleInteraction(context, run.interactionHandle(event.data))
      }
      result = await settleRun(context, run)
    } else {
      // Callback mode receives this run's events inside wait; helpers save images and ask the user.
      result = await settleRun(context, run, { onEvent: trace,
        onScreenshot: (image, index) => renderScreenshot(context, image, index),
        onInteraction: interaction => handleInteraction(context, interaction) })
    }
    save(context, 'result.json', result)
    settled(result)
    await saveArtifacts(context, result)
    if (scenario.id === 'landing-page-audit-agent' && context.screenshots === 0) throw new Error('The landing-page audit did not deliver the requested screenshot')
    // The app checks required fields and source URL formats; a reviewer still checks facts.
    const items = validateItems(result.output, scenario.fields, scenario.sourceField)
    // Scenarios that require one item per input entry are checked against the input.
    checkInputCoverage(scenario.id, items, input)
    const report = { scenario: scenario.id, dataset: input.dataset, passed: true, runId: run.id,
      status: result.status, items, audit, screenshots: context.screenshots, interactions: context.interactions,
      events: context.eventCounts, artifactIds: result.artifacts.map(artifact => artifact.id) }
    save(context, 'report.json', report)
    return report
  })
}

async function runMonitor(context: Context, scenario: Scenario, input: JsonObject, token: string, audit: JsonObject) {
  // Track creates a monitor with targets, extraction fields, and hourly scheduling.
  const monitor = await context.qoni.track.create({ token, prompt: scenario.task,
    targetUrls: input.pages, extractionSchema: { heading: 'string', source_url: 'string' },
    tickInstructions: `Open the target URLs and read the actual visible heading. Return a JSON object with heading and source_url. ${scenario.task}`,
    triggerDsl: { on: 'change' }, schedule: { kind: 'interval', intervalSeconds: 3600 } })
  save(context, 'monitor-ref.json', { id: monitor.id, audit })
  return withCleanup(context, async register => {
    register('Track monitor', () => monitor.delete())
    const definition = await monitor.get()
    save(context, 'monitor-definition.json', definition)
    if (object(definition.schedule).intervalSeconds !== 3600) throw new Error('Track did not persist the requested schedule interval')
    // Run one tick and inspect its extraction by runId; completed alone does not prove success.
    const tick = await monitor.runNow()
    save(context, 'tick.json', tick)
    if (tick.state !== 'completed') throw new Error(`Track execution failed: ${tick.state} / ${tick.error ?? ''}`)
    const runId = tick.runId
    if (typeof runId !== 'string') throw new Error('Track tick did not return a runId')
    const detail = await monitor.run(runId)
    save(context, 'tick-detail.json', detail)
    if (detail.state !== 'completed' || !detail.extracted || !Object.keys(object(detail.extracted)).length) {
      throw new Error('Track did not extract page data')
    }
    const extracted = object(detail.extracted)
    if (typeof extracted.heading !== 'string' || !extracted.heading.trim() ||
      typeof extracted.source_url !== 'string' || !/^https:\/\//.test(extracted.source_url)) {
      throw new Error('Track extraction is missing a heading or source URL')
    }
    const normalizeUrl = (value: string) => { const url = new URL(value); url.hash = ''; return url.href.replace(/\/$/, '') }
    if (!(input.pages as string[]).some(url => normalizeUrl(url) === normalizeUrl(String(extracted.source_url)))) {
      throw new Error('The Track source URL is not a configured target')
    }
    // Check persisted pause/resume state; withCleanup() deletes the monitor on exit.
    await monitor.pause()
    if ((await monitor.get()).status !== 'paused') throw new Error('Track did not persist the paused state')
    await monitor.resume()
    if ((await monitor.get()).status !== 'active') throw new Error('Track did not persist the active state')
    const report = { scenario: scenario.id, dataset: input.dataset, passed: true, monitorId: monitor.id,
      runId, state: detail.state, outcome: detail.outcome, extracted: detail.extracted, audit }
    save(context, 'report.json', report)
    return report
  })
}

export function inputFile(): JsonObject | undefined {
  const index = process.argv.indexOf('--input')
  return index >= 0 ? object(JSON.parse(readFileSync(process.argv[index + 1], 'utf8'))) : undefined
}

Results are written to output/authenticated-competitive-messaging-agent/report.json. report.items contains competitor names, facts, quotations, and source URLs, with fields competitor, fact, quote, sourceUrl. audit links the grant ID, audit ID, and effective scopes; http.json records redacted request statuses. The application parses DoAnything output and checks required fields and source URL formats. A business reviewer still assesses the content against the original sources.

Data and memory boundaries

This scenario touches four kinds of data; none of them belongs in GUMem:

• Versioned rules: brand positioning, competitor mappings, forbidden claims — managed by version in your policy store, referenced by version in the brief.
• Business state: messaging briefs, battlecards, verified pricing facts and screenshots — archived to your battlecard storage with source pointers and capture times.
• Audit records: the delegation and behavior chain formed by grantId and auditId — maintained by GenAuth.
• User Memory: not applicable in this scenario. Team-confirmed comparison frames and messaging lessons are team-shared playbook / battlecard knowledge that evolves under version management — not user-level long-term memory.

Failure handling

Situation	Recommended handling
Login state expires	Suspend the task, notify the user to sign in again, and resume from the checkpoint.
Page structure changes break extraction	Treat it as a failure and replay the session recording; never emit conclusions without evidence.
Request outside the delegated scope	Reject and record it; the attempted access remains visible in the audit chain.
A fact lacks a source URL	App-side validation drops the entry; it never enters the brief or battlecard.

Production notes

The Agent should not bypass access controls, buy products, submit forms, change account settings, or copy data outside the authorized scope. Accounts and login states used for research must be ones the enterprise is entitled to use — never run competitive research on personal accounts or credentials of unclear origin. Extraction must respect the target site's terms of service, and any crawling beyond what the ToS allows should stop until legal signs off; crawl frequency against research targets should be capped to avoid load on those sites.

Next steps

• Read the Quickstart to run the shortest path for Agent identity and delegation.
• Read Authorization and browser sandbox for the security boundaries of controlled sessions.
• Continue with the Partner portal monitoring agent for an adjacent scenario.