sweetwater.com logo
sweetwater.com

search-browse-gear

Installation

Adds this website's skill for your agents

 

Summary

Search Sweetwater for products and browse categories, returning structured data — model number, brand, price, sale/rebate flags, and new/used/demo condition — via the residential-proxy Fetch API (the browser path is blocked by PerimeterX).

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SKILL.md
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Search & Browse Gear on Sweetwater

Purpose

Search Sweetwater (the music-gear retailer) for products, browse categories, and read back fully structured data for each item — model number, brand, name, current price, list/retail price, sale and rebate flags, ratings, and new vs. used/demo/open-box condition with per-condition pricing. This skill is read-only: it never adds to cart or checks out. The recommended path uses the Browserbase Fetch API over a residential proxy (browse cloud fetch --proxies), which returns HTTP 200 with the full server-rendered HTML. Direct browser navigation is blocked by PerimeterX and should not be attempted.

When to Use

  • "What does the Shure SM7B cost on Sweetwater?" / look up a specific model number or product name.
  • "Find all electric guitars under $500" / browse a product category and read prices.
  • "Is this item on sale?" — compare finalPrice vs retailPrice and read price-drop/rebate flags.
  • "Does Sweetwater have a used/demo/open-box version of X?" — read the alternate-condition pricing.
  • Pull a comparison table of model numbers, brands, prices, and conditions across search results.

Workflow

Sweetwater is a Next.js storefront whose keyword search is powered by Algolia and whose category grids are server-rendered HTML. The site sits behind PerimeterX (HUMAN) bot protection that denies scripted browser sessions, but the Browserbase Fetch API with a residential proxy passes cleanly.

Method A — Keyword / model-number search (Algolia __NEXT_DATA__)

  1. Fetch the search URL through the residential-proxy fetch path: 
    browse cloud fetch "https://www.sweetwater.com/store/search?s=<query>" --proxies
    The response is a JSON envelope; the HTML is in the content field (NOT body). statusCode should be 200.
  2. Extract the embedded state blob from the HTML: <script id="__NEXT_DATA__" type="application/json">…</script>. Parse it as JSON.
  3. Read results from:
    • props.pageProps.hitsTotal — total match count.
    • props.pageProps.hitsPerPage — page size (42).
    • props.pageProps.resultsState.results[0].hits — the array of products.
  4. For each hit, the useful fields are:
    • objectID — the model number / item id (e.g. SM7B).
    • brand, productName, genericName, longDescription.
    • price → { finalPrice, basePrice, catalogPrice, retailPrice, hasPriceDrop, isSpecialPrice, instantRebateAmount, mailInRebateAmount }. On sale ⇔ retailPrice > finalPrice OR hasPriceDrop OR isSpecialPrice OR a non-zero rebate.
    • attributes.condition — usually "New" (or "Demo" for demo-only listings).
    • attributes.alternateConditions — array of { condition, itemid, price } for used / demo / B-stock variants of the same product (e.g. { "condition":"Demo","itemid":"SM7Bd3","price":395.1 }).
    • attributes.inStock, attributes.isInStock, attributes.available, attributes.priceRange.
    • categories.lvl0 / lvl1 / lvl2 — hierarchical category path.
    • rating → { average, count, reviewUrl }; url — relative product-detail path; specialOffer, financing.

Method B — Category browse (server-rendered product cards)

  1. Category URLs come in two shapes, both fetchable the same way:
    • Human-readable: /shop/<group>/<subcategory>/ (e.g. /shop/guitars/electric-guitars/).
    • ID-based: /c<ID>--<Name> (e.g. /c590--Solidbody_Guitars). Find them in the homepage / search-page navigation, or the category landing /shop/by-category/.
    browse cloud fetch "https://www.sweetwater.com/c590--Solidbody_Guitars" --proxies
  2. Category pages do not carry __NEXT_DATA__. Parse the server-rendered grid: each product is a <div class="product-card …" data-itemid="<MODEL#>" …> containing:
    • data-itemid — the model number.
    • product-card__name — full product name.
    • the price text (e.g. $359.99) and product-card__offers (e.g. "$300.00 Off While Supplies Last").
    • used/open-box availability as "Certified Open Box available for $X" inside the card.
    • an <a href="/store/detail/…"> link to the product detail page. There is also a small ItemList JSON-LD block, but it lists only the top ~5 featured items — use the data-itemid cards for the full grid.

Method C — Used / demo / open-box gear

  • Used and demo variants surface inline in both methods (Algolia attributes.alternateConditions; category cards' "Certified Open Box available for $X").
  • A dedicated used-gear hub exists at https://www.sweetwater.com/used (also fetchable with browse cloud fetch … --proxies).

Browser fallback

There is effectively no browser fallback. browse open --remote against any sweetwater.com URL returns "Access to this page has been denied" (PerimeterX), and a --verified --proxies session left to auto-solve the "Press & Hold" challenge for 25s+ still does not pass. Do not spend budget driving the page — use the fetch path above.

Site-Specific Gotchas

  • Anti-bot wall (browser path is dead): sweetwater.com is behind PerimeterX/HUMAN. Both the homepage and /store/search return a 403 / "Access to this page has been denied" page in a driven browser, even with Browserbase --verified --proxies and a long CAPTCHA-solve wait. The only reliable path is browse cloud fetch <url> --proxies (residential proxy, returns 200).
  • --proxies is mandatory on fetch. The plain fetch path was not relied upon; always pass --proxies.
  • Read the content field, not body. The browse cloud fetch JSON envelope puts the HTML in content (with statusCode, headers, contentType, encoding). A common mistake is reading body, which is empty.
  • Two different search systems. Keyword search (/store/search) is Algolia (indexName: production_products) and exposes clean JSON in __NEXT_DATA__. Category pages (/shop/…, /c<ID>--…) are server-rendered HTML with no __NEXT_DATA__ — parse product-card markup instead.
  • Generic queries redirect to a category page. A query that exactly matches a category name — e.g. s=microphone, s=guitar — returns HTTP 307 redirecting to a /shop/<cat>/… category page (see the Location header), which has no Algolia JSON. Model numbers and specific terms (e.g. sm7b) stay on the Algolia search page and return 200 with __NEXT_DATA__. If you get a 307, follow the Location header and switch to Method B (category-card parsing).
  • browse CLI prints an "Update available …" notice on stderr. This is harmless noise, NOT a command failure — don't let it trick you into abandoning the fetch path. (The autobrowse harness misread exactly this stderr as an error and wasted a whole run on the dead browser path.)
  • Pagination: results are paged at hitsPerPage = 42. props.pageProps carries the current page's hits; for more results, request additional pages (the search page is paginated — small result sets like sm7b (13 hits) fit on one page).
  • Sale detection is multi-signal. Don't rely on a single field: an item is discounted if retailPrice > finalPrice, or hasPriceDrop === true, or isSpecialPrice === true, or instantRebateAmount/mailInRebateAmount > 0. specialOffer (when non-null) describes promos.
  • Model number = objectID in Algolia and data-itemid on category cards — these are the canonical Sweetwater item IDs you can feed into /store/detail/<itemid>--<slug>.

Expected Output

Keyword search (Method A)

{
  "method": "fetch",
  "query": "sm7b",
  "hits_total": 13,
  "hits_per_page": 42,
  "products": [
    {
      "model_number": "SM7B",
      "brand": "Shure",
      "name": "SM7B Dynamic Cardioid Vocal Microphone",
      "final_price": 439,
      "retail_price": 549,
      "on_sale": false,
      "price_drop": false,
      "instant_rebate": 0,
      "condition": "New",
      "alternate_conditions": [
        { "condition": "Demo", "itemid": "SM7Bd3", "price": 395.1 }
      ],
      "in_stock": true,
      "categories": ["Studio & Recording", "Microphones & Wireless", "Dynamic Microphones"],
      "rating": { "average": 5, "count": 258 },
      "url": "/store/detail/SM7B--shure-sm7b-cardioid-dynamic-vocal-microphone"
    }
  ]
}

Generic query redirected to a category (307 → Method B)

{
  "method": "fetch",
  "query": "microphone",
  "redirected": true,
  "redirect_status": 307,
  "category_url": "/shop/studio-recording/microphones/",
  "note": "Generic category-name query redirected; re-fetch the category URL and parse product-card markup (Method B)."
}

Category browse (Method B)

{
  "method": "fetch",
  "category": "/c590--Solidbody_Guitars",
  "products": [
    {
      "model_number": "PAC112VVSB",
      "brand": "Yamaha",
      "name": "Yamaha PAC112V Pacifica Electric Guitar - Old Violin Sunburst",
      "price": 359.99,
      "offer": null,
      "open_box": null,
      "url": "/store/detail/PAC112VVSB--yamaha-pac112v-pacifica-old-violin-sunburst"
    }
  ]
}

Blocked (browser path attempted)

{
  "method": "browser",
  "success": false,
  "error_reasoning": "PerimeterX denied the driven session ('Access to this page has been denied'). Use `browse cloud fetch <url> --proxies` instead."
}
Search & Browse Gear on Sweetwater · browse.sh