exa-policy-guardrails

What this skill does

# Exa Policy Guardrails

## Overview

Policy enforcement for Exa neural search integrations. Exa searches the open web, so results may include unreliable sources, competitor content, or inappropriate material. This skill covers domain allowlists/blocklists (via Exa's `includeDomains`/`excludeDomains`), content moderation, query sanitization, freshness policies, and per-user budget enforcement.

## Prerequisites

- `exa-js` installed and configured
- Content policy requirements defined
- Redis for per-user quota tracking (optional)

## Instructions

### Step 1: Domain Filtering (Built-in Exa Feature)

```typescript
import Exa from "exa-js";

const exa = new Exa(process.env.EXA_API_KEY);

// Exa supports up to 1200 domains in includeDomains/excludeDomains
const TRUSTED_SOURCES = {
  medical: [
    "pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov", "who.int", "cdc.gov",
    "nejm.org", "nature.com", "thelancet.com",
  ],
  technical: [
    "github.com", "stackoverflow.com", "developer.mozilla.org",
    "docs.python.org", "nodejs.org", "arxiv.org",
  ],
  news: [
    "reuters.com", "apnews.com", "bbc.com",
    "techcrunch.com", "arstechnica.com",
  ],
};

const BLOCKED_DOMAINS = [
  "competitor1.com", "competitor2.io",
  "spam-farm.com", "content-mill.net",
];

async function policySearch(
  query: string,
  category: keyof typeof TRUSTED_SOURCES | "general"
) {
  const opts: any = {
    type: "auto",
    numResults: 10,
    text: { maxCharacters: 1000 },
    moderation: true,  // Exa's built-in content moderation
  };

  if (category !== "general" && TRUSTED_SOURCES[category]) {
    opts.includeDomains = TRUSTED_SOURCES[category];
  } else {
    opts.excludeDomains = BLOCKED_DOMAINS;
  }

  return exa.searchAndContents(query, opts);
}
```

### Step 2: Query Content Policy

```typescript
const BLOCKED_PATTERNS = [
  /how to (hack|exploit|attack|ddos)/i,
  /(buy|purchase|order)\s+(drugs|weapons|firearms)/i,
  /personal.*(address|phone|ssn|social security)/i,
  /generate.*(malware|ransomware|virus)/i,
];

function validateQuery(input: string): string {
  for (const pattern of BLOCKED_PATTERNS) {
    if (pattern.test(input)) {
      throw new PolicyViolation("Query blocked by content policy");
    }
  }

  // Sanitize
  return input
    .replace(/[<>{}]/g, "")     // strip HTML/template chars
    .replace(/\0/g, "")         // remove null bytes
    .trim()
    .substring(0, 500);         // cap query length
}

class PolicyViolation extends Error {
  constructor(message: string) {
    super(message);
    this.name = "PolicyViolation";
  }
}
```

### Step 3: Freshness Policy

```typescript
// Enforce minimum recency for time-sensitive use cases
function applyFreshnessPolicy(
  opts: any,
  maxAgeDays: number
): any {
  const cutoff = new Date(Date.now() - maxAgeDays * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
  return {
    ...opts,
    startPublishedDate: cutoff.toISOString(),
  };
}

// Usage: only return results from the last 90 days
const results = await exa.searchAndContents("AI regulation updates",
  applyFreshnessPolicy(
    { type: "neural", numResults: 10, text: true },
    90  // max 90 days old
  )
);
```

### Step 4: Per-User Budget Enforcement

```typescript
class ExaUsagePolicy {
  private usage = new Map<string, { count: number; resetAt: number }>();
  private limits: Record<string, number>;

  constructor(limits: Record<string, number> = {
    "free": 10,
    "pro": 100,
    "enterprise": 1000,
  }) {
    this.limits = limits;
  }

  checkQuota(userId: string, tier: string): void {
    const limit = this.limits[tier] || this.limits["free"] || 10;
    const now = Date.now();
    const hourKey = `${userId}:${new Date().toISOString().substring(0, 13)}`;

    let entry = this.usage.get(hourKey);
    if (!entry || entry.resetAt < now) {
      entry = { count: 0, resetAt: now + 3600 * 1000 };
    }

    if (entry.count >= limit) {
      throw new PolicyViolation(
        `Hourly search quota exceeded: ${entry.count}/${limit}`
      );
    }

    entry.count++;
    this.usage.set(hourKey, entry);
  }
}

const usagePolicy = new ExaUsagePolicy();
```

### Step 5: Combined Policy Enforcement

```typescript
async function enforcedSearch(
  userId: string,
  userTier: string,
  rawQuery: string,
  category: keyof typeof TRUSTED_SOURCES | "general" = "general",
  maxAgeDays?: number
) {
  // 1. Check quota
  usagePolicy.checkQuota(userId, userTier);

  // 2. Validate and sanitize query
  const query = validateQuery(rawQuery);

  // 3. Build options with domain policy
  let opts: any = {
    type: "auto",
    numResults: 10,
    text: { maxCharacters: 1000 },
    moderation: true,
  };

  if (category !== "general" && TRUSTED_SOURCES[category]) {
    opts.includeDomains = TRUSTED_SOURCES[category];
  } else {
    opts.excludeDomains = BLOCKED_DOMAINS;
  }

  // 4. Apply freshness policy
  if (maxAgeDays) {
    opts = applyFreshnessPolicy(opts, maxAgeDays);
  }

  // 5. Execute search
  return exa.searchAndContents(query, opts);
}
```

## Error Handling

| Issue | Cause | Solution |
|-------|-------|----------|
| Competitor content in results | No domain filtering | Apply `excludeDomains` blocklist |
| Harmful query accepted | No content policy | Validate queries against blocked patterns |
| Stale results displayed | No freshness check | Apply `startPublishedDate` filter |
| API cost overrun | No usage limits | Implement per-user/tier quotas |
| Blocked policy query | False positive | Review and adjust `BLOCKED_PATTERNS` |

## Resources

- [Exa Search Reference](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search)
- [Exa Domain Filtering](https://docs.exa.ai/reference/search)

## Next Steps

For architecture decisions, see `exa-architecture-variants`. For cost control, see `exa-cost-tuning`.