Avanan - Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the avanan-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

1. macOS / Linux:

   bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Servosity/msp-skills/main/skills/avanan/install.sh)
   

2. Windows (PowerShell):

   iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Servosity/msp-skills/main/skills/avanan/install.ps1 | iex
   

3. Verify: avanan-cli --version
4. Ensure ~/.local/bin (macOS / Linux) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\msp-skills (Windows) is on $PATH.

The installer downloads the avanan-cli and avanan-mcp binaries into ~/.local/bin (macOS / Linux) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\msp-skills (Windows). It does not register the skill with your agent and writes no MCP client config - see mcp-install.md for that wire-up.

If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

Avanan (Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration) has integrations for XSOAR, Sentinel, n8n, and MCP, but no CLI and nothing that keeps state. This one covers the whole documented surface, including the sectool exception families the published spec omits, and adds a local SQLite mirror that makes triage, campaign, exceptions audit, msp fleet, and timeline possible. It also implements the documented request signature exactly, including the request-string term the docs leave out.

When to Use This CLI

Use this CLI for Avanan / Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration work: investigating phishing and malware detections, searching mail and SaaS entities, quarantining or restoring messages, managing allow and block exceptions across all seven policy engines, and running MSP tenant, license, and usage operations. Run avanan-cli mirror --since 7d before the offline commands (triage, campaign, timeline, exceptions find, exceptions audit) and avanan-cli sync --resources msp before msp fleet - those commands read the local mirror only and will report empty results against an unpopulated store. It is the right tool when a question spans more than one tenant or more than one point in time, because the mirror answers without spending API quota.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

• Do not use this CLI for Check Point system or audit logs - the vendor exposes those through the separate Infinity Portal API, not this one
• Do not use this CLI for Check Point firewall, endpoint, or network security products; it covers email and SaaS collaboration only
• Do not use this CLI to read mail from Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace directly - it only sees messages Avanan has scanned
• Do not use this CLI to change Avanan security policy rules or engine configuration; only exceptions are exposed through the API
• Do not use this CLI to reach a tenant in another region - credentials are region-scoped and cross-region access is refused by design

Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Local state that compounds

• triage - See everything detected in a window you choose, bucketed by threat type, severity, and state, with the sender domains driving the volume.

  Reach for this at the start of a shift instead of re-querying the same window and eyeballing which detections you already handled.

  avanan-cli triage --since 24h --agent
  

• campaign - Group detections into candidate phishing campaigns by sender domain and normalized subject, showing recipient spread and how many are still un-remediated.

  Reach for this when triage shows volume and you need to know whether forty detections are one campaign or forty problems.

  avanan-cli campaign --since 7d --agent
  

• timeline - Reconstruct one message's history from what this CLI mirrored and did: detection, the latest mirrored state, actions this CLI submitted, task outcomes, and restore disposition, in order. Actions taken in the Avanan portal or by another tool are not in the mirror and will not appear.

  Reach for this when a user disputes a quarantine or a ticket needs evidence of what actually happened to a message.

  avanan-cli timeline f05b74da3ee859eea41aeac40aaad3c2 --agent
  

Collapsing the seven-headed exception system

• exceptions find - Ask whether a domain, sender, URL, or hash is excepted anywhere across all seven engines and nine exception tables at once.

  Reach for this before adding an allowlist entry, or when a phish got through and you need to know whether one of your own exceptions let it.

  avanan-cli exceptions find partner-domain.com --agent
  

• exceptions audit - Flag exceptions that contradict each other across sub-systems, exact duplicates, and entries that have not matched traffic in the mirrored window.

  Reach for this on a policy review to find the contractor domain nobody removed and the string that is allowlisted in one engine and blocked in another.

  avanan-cli exceptions audit --agent
  

MSP scale

• msp fleet - One ranked table across every tenant joining licensed seats, add-ons, usage, and detection volume.

  Reach for this to spot tenants over their seat count or with an unusual detection week without walking the tenant list by hand.

  avanan-cli msp fleet --agent
  

Fixing the API's worst footgun

• remediate - Quarantine or restore a batch, wait for the async task to finish, and report the real per-item outcome.

  Reach for this instead of firing an action and polling by hand, and to turn the single-scope 400 into an error that names your actual scopes.

  avanan-cli remediate quarantine --entity f05b74da3ee859eea41aeac40aaad3c2 --wait --dry-run
  

Command Reference

action - Manage action

• avanan-cli action post-entity - Post Entity Action.
• avanan-cli action post-event - Post Event Action.

avanan-search - Manage avanan search

• avanan-cli avanan-search get-saas-entity - Get Saas Entity.
• avanan-cli avanan-search query-saas-entity - Query Saas Entity.

download - Manage download

• avanan-cli download <entity_id> - Download the raw .eml for a SaaS entity.

download-large-email - Manage download large email

• avanan-cli download-large-email <entity_id> - Return a presigned URL for downloading a message too large to stream inline.

event - Manage event

• avanan-cli event get - Get Event.
• avanan-cli event query - Query Event.

exceptions - Manage exceptions

• avanan-cli exceptions create - Create Ap Exception Blacklist.
• avanan-cli exceptions create-whitelist - Create Ap Exception Whitelist.
• avanan-cli exceptions get-ap - Get Ap Exception.
• avanan-cli exceptions get-ap-exctype - Get Ap Exception.
• avanan-cli exceptions update - Update Ap Exception Blacklist.
• avanan-cli exceptions update-whitelist - Update Ap Exception Whitelist.

msp - Manage msp

• avanan-cli msp create - Create Msp.
• avanan-cli msp create-tenants - Create Tenant.
• avanan-cli msp create-users - Create User.
• avanan-cli msp delete - Delete Msp.
• avanan-cli msp delete-tenants - Delete Tenant.
• avanan-cli msp delete-users - Delete User.
• avanan-cli msp describe-tenant - Describe Tenant.
• avanan-cli msp describe-user - Describe User.
• avanan-cli msp list - List Msps.
• avanan-cli msp list-addons - List Addons.
• avanan-cli msp list-daily-usages - List Daily Usages.
• avanan-cli msp list-licenses - List Licenses.
• avanan-cli msp list-monthly-usages - List Monthly Usages.
• avanan-cli msp list-tenants - List Tenants.
• avanan-cli msp list-users - List Users.
• avanan-cli msp update - Update User.
• avanan-cli msp update-or-create-tenant-license - Update Or Create Tenant License.

report - Manage report

• avanan-cli report - Report that one or more entities were mis-classified (phishing, spam, clean, or marketing email).

scopes - Manage scopes

• avanan-cli scopes - Get Scopes.

sectool-exceptions - Manage sectool exceptions

• avanan-cli sectool-exceptions create - Create an exception for the named security engine.
• avanan-cli sectool-exceptions delete - Delete an exception for the named security engine.
• avanan-cli sectool-exceptions update - Update an existing exception for the named security engine.

sectools - Manage sectools

• avanan-cli sectools create-anomaly-exception - Create an Anomaly engine exception rule.
• avanan-cli sectools create-ctp-item - Add an entry to a Click-Time Protection exception list.
• avanan-cli sectools delete-anomaly-exceptions - Delete Anomaly engine exception rules by rule ID.
• avanan-cli sectools delete-ctp-item - Delete one Click-Time Protection exception entry.
• avanan-cli sectools delete-ctp-items - Delete multiple Click-Time Protection exception entries by ID.
• avanan-cli sectools delete-ctp-lists - Delete every Click-Time Protection exception list.
• avanan-cli sectools get-ctp-item - Get one Click-Time Protection exception entry by ID.
• avanan-cli sectools get-ctp-list - Get one Click-Time Protection exception list by ID.
• avanan-cli sectools list-anomaly-exceptions - List the Anomaly engine's exception rules.
• avanan-cli sectools list-ctp-items - List the individual entries across Click-Time Protection exception lists.
• avanan-cli sectools list-ctp-lists - List the Click-Time Protection exception lists.
• avanan-cli sectools update-ctp-item - Update one Click-Time Protection exception entry.
• avanan-cli sectools update-ctp-items - Update Click-Time Protection exception list entries.

soar - Manage soar

• avanan-cli soar get-entity - Retrieve the decoded email record for a SaaS entity, including headers and body. Known limitation: this endpoint returns HTTP 404 for every entity on the tenants tested, including entities confirmed to exist seconds earlier. Use avanan-cli avanan-search get-saas-entity <entity_id> --scopes <scope> instead, which returns the full record.
• avanan-cli soar post-notify - Send an exposure notification about a specific entity to a list of email addresses.

task - Manage task

• avanan-cli task <task_id> - Get Task.

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

avanan-cli which "<capability in your own words>"

which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match - fall back to --help or use a narrower query.

Recipes

Shift handoff in one command

avanan-cli triage --since 12h --agent

Requires a populated mirror (mirror --since 7d). Everything detected in the window, bucketed by type, severity, and state, with the top offending sender domains and a count of anything still unresolved.

Narrow a large event query to just what an agent needs

avanan-cli event query --request-data-event-types phishing --agent --select responseData.eventId,responseData.type,responseData.state,responseData.entityInfo.subject,responseData.entityInfo.senderEmail

Avanan event payloads nest entity detail several levels deep and run to tens of KB per call; the dotted --select paths keep only the fields worth reading.

Check an allowlist request before you grant it

avanan-cli exceptions find vendor-domain.com --agent

Requires mirror --resources exceptions first. Searches all nine exception tables at once and shows which engine, which list side, and who created each hit - replacing nine separate API calls.

Quarantine a confirmed campaign and prove it landed

avanan-cli remediate quarantine --entity f05b74da3ee859eea41aeac40aaad3c2 --wait --dry-run

Resolves the required single scope, submits the action, polls the task to a terminal state, and prints the per-item outcome. Drop --dry-run to execute.

Find tenants running over their licensed seats

avanan-cli msp fleet --agent --select rows.tenant,rows.seats_licensed,rows.seats_used,rows.detections

Requires sync --resources msp and mirror --since 7d first. One local join across mirrored tenants, licenses, and detection volume, ranked by seat overage.

Auth Setup

Avanan uses one of two schemes depending on your host, and the CLI picks automatically. On legacy *.avanan.net hosts it performs the signed handshake: a fresh request UUID, your application ID, a GMT timestamp, and an x-av-sig computed as sha256(base64(reqId + appId + date + requestString + secret)). The resulting token lasts one hour and is refreshed for you. On Infinity Portal hosts it exchanges your access key for a bearer token instead. Set AVANAN_APP_ID and AVANAN_CLIENT_SECRET, pick your region, and run auth login. Credentials are region-scoped: a US key cannot read EU data, by design.

Run avanan-cli doctor to verify setup.

Agent Mode

Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes.

• Pipeable - JSON on stdout, errors on stderr

• Filterable - --select keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:

  avanan-cli event get <event_id> --scopes <farm>:<tenant> --x-av-req-id 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000 --agent --select actions,additionalData,availableEventActions
  

• Previewable - --dry-run shows the request without sending

• Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available

• Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag

• Explicit retries - use --idempotent only when an already-existing create should count as success, and use --ignore-missing only when a missing delete target should count as success

Response envelope

Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:

{
  "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
  "results": <data>
}

Parse .results for data and .meta.source to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable N results (live) summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (--json, --csv, --compact, --quiet, --plain, --select) is set - piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.

Paths and state

Agents should treat the CLI's path resolver as part of the runtime contract:

• Use --home <dir> for one invocation, or set AVANAN_HOME=<dir> to relocate all four path kinds under one root.

• Use per-kind env vars only when a specific kind must diverge: AVANAN_CONFIG_DIR, AVANAN_DATA_DIR, AVANAN_STATE_DIR, AVANAN_CACHE_DIR.

• Resolution order is per-kind env var, --home, AVANAN_HOME, XDG (XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME), then platform defaults.

• config contains settings like config.toml and profiles. data contains credentials.toml, data.db, cookies, and auth sidecars. state contains persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log. cache contains regenerable HTTP/cache files.

• Stored secrets live in credentials.toml under the data dir. Existing legacy config.toml secrets are read for compatibility and leave config.toml on the first auth write.

• Run avanan-cli doctor --fail-on warn to surface path and credential-location warnings. agent-context exposes a schema v4 paths block for agents that need the resolved dirs.

• For MCP, pass relocation through the MCP host config. The MCP binary does not inherit CLI flags:

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "avanan": {
        "command": "avanan-mcp",
        "env": {
          "AVANAN_HOME": "/srv/avanan"
        }
      }
    }
  }
  

Fleet precedence: an inherited per-kind env var overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use AVANAN_HOME or per-kind vars as durable fleet levers, and use --home only for a single invocation. Relocation is not reversible by unsetting env vars; move files manually before clearing AVANAN_HOME, or doctor will not find credentials left under the former root.

Automatic learning

This CLI ships a self-capturing learning loop. The CLI does its own bookkeeping: every invocation is journaled locally, a failed flag followed by a corrected retry auto-derives a flag_alias candidate, and a teach on a query family without a playbook auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal. Your job is judgment only: recall first, act on surfaced candidates, teach the final answer, playbook amend when you observe a correction. You never record failures by hand.

Step 1: recall before any discovery

Before list/search/drill commands on a new user question, run:

avanan-cli recall "<user's question>" --agent

The response envelope:

{
  "query": "...",
  "normalized": "<normalized form>",
  "query_entities": ["..."],
  "found": true | false,
  "match_score": 0.0,
  "results": [
    { "resource_id": "...", "resource_type": "...", "venue": "...",
      "confidence": 2, "entity_match": "exact|partial|unknown",
      "source": "taught|preseed|pattern", "warnings": ["..."] }
  ],
  "mismatches": [ /* only when --debug-mismatches */ ],
  "warnings": [ /* top-level */ ],
  "candidates": [
    { "id": 12, "class": "flag_alias | playbook_candidate",
      "summary": "...", "sightings": 3, "last_seen": "...",
      "rationale": "...",
      "next_action": ["<trial command>", "avanan-cli learnings confirm 12"] }
  ],
  "playbook": {
    "query_family": "...",
    "playbook": {
      "steps": [ { "cmd": "<command with {slot} substitution>", "purpose": "..." } ],
      "entity_slots": ["$ENTITY"],
      "expected_tool_calls": 3
    },
    "slots_resolved": { "$ENTITY": { "token": "<live token>", "canonical": "<canonical>" } },
    "notes": "<workarounds + gotchas for this query family>"
  },
  "notes": "<duplicate surface for non-playbook callers>"
}

Empty-store short-circuit: if the store has no learnings, playbooks, or candidates yet (recall finds nothing and learnings list and learnings candidates are both empty), skip recall for the rest of this session instead of taxing every query; resume recall-first once something has been taught.

Step 2: decision tree

Read candidates, playbook, notes, results[0], and warnings in that order:

if Candidates present (warnings include "candidates_present"):
    -> candidates are try-then-confirm, never facts. Follow each candidate's
       two-step next_action verbatim: run the trial command first, then run
       `learnings confirm <id>` only after the trial verified the behavior.
       Reject a wrong candidate with `learnings reject <id>`.
    -> NEVER re-teach something recall surfaced as a candidate; confirm or
       reject that candidate instead of teaching a duplicate.
    -> candidates ride alongside playbooks and resource hits, not instead of
       them; continue with the branches below after acting on them.

if Playbook present:
    -> READ Playbook.notes verbatim FIRST (workarounds + gotchas the CLI surface doesn't expose)
    -> replay Playbook.steps in order, substituting Playbook.slots_resolved entries
       for the entity slot tokens. If a step's slot is unresolved, fall back to
       discovery for that step only.
    -> the Playbook's expected_tool_calls is a budget; if you find yourself running
       materially more, record the divergence via `avanan-cli playbook amend`
       at end-of-session.

elif Notes present (no Playbook):
    -> read Notes verbatim before any discovery step; they carry known gotchas
       for this query family even when no structured choreography exists yet.

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "exact" AND Results[0].Confidence >= 2:
    -> skip discovery; fetch live data for Results[*].ResourceID in parallel

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "partial":
    -> candidate hint, NOT a hit; read the resource title to validate before trusting

elif (any row in Mismatches[] when --debug-mismatches was passed):
    -> treat as cold start; the stored learning is for a different entity
       (different canonical resolved from query_entities)

else:  // Found == false, no playbook, no notes
    -> cold start; run discovery normally; teach the answer afterward (Step 4).
       If the family has no playbook yet, that teach auto-synthesizes a
       playbook candidate from this session's journal - you do not need to
       record one by hand.

Playbook and Notes are orthogonal to the per-resource path. A recall response can carry both a Playbook AND a Results[] hit - use both: the Playbook tells you which choreography to run; the resource hits short-circuit specific steps. Default to skipping mismatches; pass --debug-mismatches only when investigating cold-start surprises.

Candidate judgment details: learnings confirm <id> prints the candidate's full payload before materializing it - check that the printed payload matches the behavior you verified. learnings reject <id> tombstones the derivation signature so the same candidate does not resurface. The envelope carries only the few candidates worth acting on now; avanan-cli learnings candidates lists the full open set.

Graceful degradation: if learnings confirm is an unknown command, you are driving an older binary - ignore the candidates guidance and follow the rest of the protocol.

Step 3: always read warnings

• low_confidence: row exists at confidence<2. Treat as a hint, not a skip-discovery hit.
• resource_not_in_store: the local store doesn't have the resource the learning points at. The match validator couldn't classify entities - direct-fetch and re-evaluate.
• cross_alias_match (per-result): the row was taught under a different alias and matched the live query's canonical via entity_lookups (e.g., a "USA" teach satisfying a "United States" recall). Trust the resource_id.
• similar_shape_different_entity:<canonical> (top-level): a structurally matching row exists but its canonical entity differs from the live query's. Treated as cold start; the warning carries the conflicting canonical as a hint, but the row is NOT promoted into Results.
• ambiguous_alias (top-level): a single query entity resolved to multiple canonicals (e.g., "Cards" → Arizona Cardinals + St. Louis Cardinals). Surface the ambiguity from context before committing to a resource.
• candidates_present (top-level): the envelope carries a candidates section. Handle it via the candidates branch in Step 2 before anything else.
• lookup_refresh_available (top-level): an entity in the query has no lookup row yet, but synced data could provide one. Run avanan-cli sync to refresh entity lookups.
• Top-level no_learnings_for_query_family: the table had no rows above the Jaccard floor. Pure cold start.

Step 4: teach & after finalizing your response - always