Authentication overview

Authentication overview

ScenarioDeck separates the portable reproduction from the local capability used to satisfy authentication.

State Card / Capture Session / State Capsule
+ optional non-secret Auth Persona requirement
+ local protected Auth Binding or browser session
= authenticated reproduction on this device

• An Auth Persona is a non-secret logical identity, such as Manager · QA.
• An Auth Binding is approved machine-local credential/session material used only to satisfy that Persona for a supported project, environment, origin, and storage policy.

Raw Auth Binding values stay outside ordinary State Cards, Capture Sessions, State Capsules, revisions, run evidence, ordinary share bundles, normal renderer state, machine-readable CLI/MCP responses, logs, crash evidence, and analytics.

A Development Profile login is not a portable Auth Binding. Development Profile state remains machine-local browser convenience and is never transferred by an ordinary State Card share.

Capture and authentication

ScenarioDeck does not decide to retain sensitive values merely because the managed browser is signed in.

Authentication may come from the ScenarioDeck-owned Development Profile or from an approved local Auth Persona/Binding where the workflow supports it. The saved State Card carries only safe requirements/status needed to explain what must be available on the machine that reproduces it.

Protected values captured during a workflow

Protected form values are a separate concept from Auth Personas and Auth Bindings.

Sensitive values are excluded by default. When a supported protected candidate is explicitly retained:

• the value is stored through the OS-protected machine-local boundary;
• it remains available only on that device;
• using it requires explicit authorization for each reproduction run;
• ordinary sharing is unavailable while the saved workflow requires that retained value.

If the creator confirms Discard, ScenarioDeck removes the protected local value, derives a sanitized saved Session, and leaves a manual Journey barrier for that step. The ordinary credential-free State Card can then be shared when no other blocker remains.

The current Public Beta does not transfer protected values to another user.

Clean Session

Clean Session starts from a fresh isolated browser context and restores only the approved State Card state plus local authentication material that the current machine is allowed to use.

If the required local authentication is missing, expired, rejected, policy-denied, or scoped to the wrong origin/environment, ScenarioDeck fails closed and asks for the appropriate local recovery rather than reusing hidden Development Profile state.

Ordinary sharing

An ordinary encrypted State Card share sends the portable reproduction, not the sender’s machine-local login capability.

It excludes:

• retained protected local values;
• raw cookies and bearer/access/refresh tokens;
• Authorization headers;
• browser-profile contents;
• local Auth Binding values;
• local sign-in state.

The recipient imports the State Card locally and establishes their own compatible authentication when the reproduction requires it.