Universal Containers needs to bring individual customer warranties from an external system into Data Cloud.

The AgentForce Retrieval Configuration Guide outlines that when external data must be filtered by specific criteria—such as WarrantyStatus = Active—the correct approach is to use Hybrid Search with pre-filtering logic defined in a custom retriever. The documentation specifies: “Hybrid search allows combining keyword precision and semantic context. When used with a custom retriever, administrators can pre-filter data on metadata fields (e.g., WarrantyStatus) to ensure that only eligible records are returned.”

Option A (relying on instructions) introduces non-deterministic behavior because the LLM cannot enforce data constraints. Option B (custom variable filtering) applies post-retrieval filtering, which is less efficient and less secure than index-level filtering. Therefore, Option C aligns with Salesforce’s best practice for deterministic, metadata-based retrieval control.

References (AgentForce Documents / Study Guide):

AgentForce Data Cloud Retrieval Guide: “Building Custom Retrievers with Metadata Filters”

Einstein Studio for AgentForce: “Hybrid Search Pre-Filtering”

AgentForce Study Guide: “Filtering Warranty Data by Active Status”