afv-library/skills/using-salesforce-archive/SKILL.md

name	description	metadata
using-salesforce-archive	ALWAYS USE THIS SKILL for anything involving Salesforce Archive (also called Trusted Services Archive) — search, view, unarchive, analyze, mask, and erase (RTBF) archived records via the Archive Connect API, and reading archive job status from the ArchiveActivity object. TRIGGER when: user mentions Salesforce Archive, Trusted Services Archive, archive/unarchive records, ArchiveActivity, archive jobs, archive policy, archive analyzer, archived record search, archive storage, archive failure logs, right to be forgotten / RTBF on archived data, or masking archived PII — including phrasings like 'find records that were archived', 'restore archived data', 'why did the archive job fail', 'download the archive failure log', or 'monitor my archive jobs', AND even when they ask you to explain, give guidance, or write a runbook/doc about these topics rather than run code. SKIP when: the user wants generic data-export/backup unrelated to the Archive add-on, or wants to build the archive policy UI metadata.	version 1.0

Salesforce Archive

Operate Salesforce Archive (also called Trusted Services Archive) through its Connect API and the ArchiveActivity job-metadata object. This skill covers how to search and restore archived records, run the analyzer, handle RTBF erasure and PII masking, check storage, and — the part most often missed — how to read archive job status from ArchiveActivity and use a job's Id + Type to download its logs.

Scope

• In scope: Calling the Archive Connect API operations under /platform/data-resilience/archive/; querying the ArchiveActivity object via SOQL/Connect; correlating a job's ArchiveActivity record with its log-download endpoints; the verify-after-write pattern for each async operation.
• Out of scope: Defining archive policies / ArchivePolicyDefinition metadata; building UI; generating Flows over archive data (ArchiveActivity is not Flow-queryable — see Gotchas); generic backup/export tooling unrelated to the add-on.

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Required Inputs

Gather or infer before acting:

• Operation intent: search, view, unarchive, analyze, mask, RTBF, storage check, or job-status/log lookup.
• Target sObject (sobjectName): required for search and unarchive.
• Filters: search and unarchive require sobjectName + at least one filter.
• For log downloads: the requestId (an ArchiveActivity Id, 8qv… prefix) of a completed, log-producing job, and reportType = that activity's Type.

Preconditions (confirm or surface to the user if a call returns a not-permitted error):

• The org must have Salesforce Archive enabled (the TrustedServicesArchive / TrustedServicesArchiveBt org permission). Every operation is gated on this first.
• Each operation requires a specific user permission on top of the org gate — see the Permissions table below. There is no single "archive admin" role; access is per-capability.

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Permissions

Every operation first requires the org to have Salesforce Archive enabled (hasTrustedServicesArchive = OrgPermissions.TrustedServicesArchive || TrustedServicesArchiveBt). On top of that org gate, each capability is gated by a distinct user permission. A call the user isn't permitted for fails with a "not permitted" error — match the error to the missing permission below.

Operation	User permission required
search-archived-records, get-search-archived-records-next-page	ViewSearchPage (Archive Search) — the Connect search endpoint runs the global-search path, gated by Archive Search, not ViewArchivedRecords
search-archived-records-with-sharing-rules (Agentforce)	ViewArchivedRecords
unarchive-records	UnarchiveSdk
forget-archived-records (RTBF) + get-rtbf-status	Rtbf
mask-archived-records + get-masking-status	Rtbf (masking shares the same Rtbf permission — not a separate entitlement)
run-analyzer, get-analyzer-report, get-archive-storage-used	ArchiveAnalyzer
get-execution-details-stream-url, get-failed-records-stream-url	ViewActivitiesPage (Archive Activities)

Source of truth: the Connect API resource classes in trusted-services-archive-connect-impl → TrustedServicesArchiveSdkImpl guards → TrustedServicesArchive.accessChecks.xml. Note search-archived-records routes through performArchiverGlobalSearch (gated by canRunArchiveSearch = ViewSearchPage); the separate Apex-SDK searchArchivedRecords() method is gated by ViewArchivedRecords, but the Connect API search endpoint does not use it.

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Workflow

All steps are sequential within a task. Read the referenced file the first time you touch that area.

1. Identify the operation and read the contract — do not rely on general knowledge of the Archive API, which has non-obvious contracts. Load references/connect-api-operations.md for the exact request/response shape, required inputs, and per-operation gotchas of every Archive Connect API operation. Do this before constructing any call (e.g. dateRanges plural vs singular, isSuccess flag vs HTTP status, url: null meaning no log).

2. For job status / monitoring, read the data model — when the task involves archive jobs, failures, progress, counts, or logs, load references/archive-activity-entity.md for the ArchiveActivity field reference and how it links to the Connect API. Query ArchiveActivity via SOQL or Connect — not Flow. For a worked end-to-end example (find failed/in-progress jobs, then pull their execution-detail and failed-records logs), load examples/monitor-failed-jobs.md.

3. Construct and send the call — follow the contract exactly. For searches, supply sobjectName + ≥1 filter; for date filtering use the plural dateRanges array of {field, from, to} with full ISO-8601 datetimes.

4. Branch on the right signal — some operations return HTTP 201 with a body-level success flag (body.statusCode, body.isSuccess). Read references/connect-api-operations.md for which signal to trust per operation; never assume the HTTP status alone means success.

5. Verify after every write — re-read state to confirm the effect (see the Verify-After-Write table below). Async operations (analyzer, RTBF, masking) return a request id you must poll.

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Verify-After-Write

After this write	Confirm by
run-analyzer	Poll get-analyzer-report until the report is populated
unarchive-records	Re-run search-archived-records — confirm records left the archive
forget-archived-records (RTBF)	Poll get-rtbf-status with the returned request_id
mask-archived-records	Poll get-masking-status with the returned request_id

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Rules / Constraints

Constraint	Rationale
Search & unarchive require sobjectName + at least one filter	The controller rejects an unfiltered request with "Search must be based on at least 1 field" — a full-object operation is never allowed.
Date filters must be full ISO-8601 datetimes (2020-01-01T00:00:00Z)	A date-only value (2020-01-01) returns 400 JSON_PARSER_ERROR because the field is typed xsd:dateTime.
Search uses dateRanges (plural array); unarchive uses dateRange (singular)	They are genuinely different fields on the two endpoints; using the wrong shape silently drops the filter or 400s.
Stop pagination when scroll_id == "-1"	Calling get-search-archived-records-next-page with "-1" returns 500.
Log downloads need a real ArchiveActivity Id as requestId + that activity's Type as reportType	The backend resolves the log by the activity record; a mismatched reportType returns no log.
Never use the deprecated lookups	global-search-by-id, get-global-search-results, and view-archived-records are deprecated with no successor and currently 500. Use search-archived-records (+ next-page) instead.
Excluded objects are not retrievable	Feed, History, Relation, Share are not searchable; Files/Attachments are not retrievable via this API — do not promise them.
Query ArchiveActivity via SOQL/Connect, never Flow	ArchiveActivity has isProcessEnabled=false, so a Flow "Get Records" element on it fails with "You can't get ArchiveActivity records in a flow."

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Gotchas

Issue	Resolution
Treating HTTP 201 as success	Several operations return 201 with a body-level outcome. Branch on body.statusCode (search) or body.isSuccess (with-sharing-rules), not the HTTP code.
run-analyzer.isRunning used as a signal	It is always null; the endpoint only populates message. Poll get-analyzer-report to confirm completion instead.
search-archived-records-with-sharing-rules (Agentforce) filters as an array	filtersJson must be a JSON-encoded object map {"Field":"Value"}, not an array of {field,value}; the array form returns isSuccess:false "No valid filters provided".
Log url treated as present because status is 201	get-*-stream-url returns {url}; url: null means no log was resolved. Always check url != null.
Misreading get-archive-storage-used	usedStorage[]/availableStorage[] are parallel positional arrays: index 0=org DATA, 1=org FILE, 2=archive RECORDS, 3=archive FILE. availableStorage[2]/[3] are always 0 (archive tier is unmetered) — that means "not tracked", not "full".
Expecting ArchiveActivity in a Flow	It is not Flow-enabled (isProcessEnabled=false). Use SOQL/Connect/Reports.
Hitting unarchive caps	Unarchive processes ≤1000 matched records per request and ≤50 requests/hour/org, and restores the whole archived hierarchy of each match.
RTBF/masking caps	criteria ≤10 entries (one per object); ≤10,000 root records/day (shared between RTBF and masking); masking is irreversible. Both RTBF and masking are gated by the same Rtbf user permission.

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Output Expectations

This is a knowledge/API skill — it produces API calls and their interpreted results, plus SOQL against ArchiveActivity. It does not generate deployable metadata. Deliverables per task: the correct operation invocation(s), the right success-signal branching, and a verify-after-write confirmation.

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Reference File Index

File	When to read
references/connect-api-operations.md	Before constructing any Archive Connect API call — full per-operation contracts, success signals, and limits
references/archive-activity-entity.md	For any job-status / failure / progress / log task — ArchiveActivity field reference and its link to the log-download endpoints
examples/monitor-failed-jobs.md	To follow an end-to-end monitoring flow: find failed/in-progress jobs, then download their logs