UNDER THE HOOD

A simple request. A resilient workflow.

A working application boundary, with a replaceable portal automation layer.

Try a lookup

Request lifecycle

DEMO ARCHITECTURE

Customer App

Validate input, submit the lookup, display results.

React · App Router

Working

Lookup API

POST /api/lookup · validation and structured errors.

Server route handler

Working

Portal Automation Service

Coordinate the request, trace, retries, and timing.

Provider interface

Working

Session Manager

Model session health, expiration, and recovery.

Synthetic session cookie

Simulated

Browser Provider

Fill the portal form, submit, and extract a value.

SimulatedPortalProvider

Simulated

Third-Party Portal

Deterministic account fixtures behind a demo login.

Interactive /portal route

Simulated

STRUCTURED JSON RESPONSE

01 / IN THIS DEMO

Real application.
Simulated portal.

The form, server API, validation, recovery states, measured timers, and response handling all work. Browser interaction and account data are synthetic.

The timeline animates the same planned steps that the server executes. The final trace and timings come from the API; this is not a live browser event stream.

Designed for ChatGPT Sites

No external services, browser binaries, database, background workers, or environment variables are needed for the core demo.

02 / SESSION MODEL

Request-scoped, deployment-safe.

PortalSessionManager models authenticated, expired, and reauthenticating states, alongside healthy or degraded status.

An HTTP-only cookie carries only synthetic session metadata and the next demo scenario. It is not an authentication credential and has no access authority.

A fresh demo starts with a simulated 12-minute-old warm session. It expires after 30 minutes; reset restores a healthy session.

RELIABILITY

Recovery is part of the flow.

Exercise every path with the demo controls.

Session reuse

Reuse a healthy authenticated session.

Implemented in demo

Automatic reauthentication

Refresh expired sessions and resume the lookup.

Implemented in demo

MFA challenge detection

Invoke a configured, approved authentication flow.

Simulated

Retry policy

Up to 3 attempts with exponential backoff.

Implemented in demo

Timeout protection

Bound requests and return a safe timeout error.

Implemented in demo

Structured errors

Stable error codes with a request correlation ID.

Implemented in demo

Health checks

Track simulated session health and portal failures.

Simulated

Alert hooks

Expose repeated failures without sending notifications.

Simulated

PERFORMANCE

Latency Strategy

Spend the time on the lookup, not repeated setup.

Warm browser session

0 ms startup

When reusing an already-running browser; connection overhead still applies.

Existing authentication

No login roundtrip

While the portal accepts the existing authenticated session.

Direct DOM interaction

Minimal navigation

Use evaluated selectors and extract only the required fields.

Concurrent preparation

Where applicable

Prepare independent work without racing shared session state.

Typical warm-session lookup2–6 secondsExpected production target · not a benchmark

Client requirement< 10 secondsTo be verified against the actual portal

Actual latency depends on the target portal’s response time, authentication flow, anti-automation behavior, and network conditions.

THE NEXT STEP

Production Implementation

Recommended architecture · not connected

API

Node.js + TypeScriptDeploy the API service alongside managed browser infrastructure.

Browser automation

Browserbase + StagehandAlternative: Patchright / Playwright on isolated browser workers, outside Sites.

Session persistence

Managed browser sessionsEncrypted credential and session storage, scoped to each authorized account.

Reliability

Bounded retries and timeoutsExponential backoff, portal health checks, structured logs, health monitoring, and failure alerts.

Authorized access, by design.

The implementation assumes authorized access to the client’s own portal account. Production credentials would be encrypted and accessed only by the automation service.

Production MFA is handled through a configured automated or approved authentication mechanism. Production MFA handling depends on the portal’s supported authentication methods.

This demo includes no CAPTCHA bypassing, anti-bot circumvention, proxy rotation, fingerprint spoofing, or stealth automation. Evaluate the real portal before selecting an approved browser provider.

This demo uses a simulated portal adapter because the client’s production portal and credentials are not available. The automation provider is intentionally abstracted so it can be replaced with a real managed browser implementation.