Yeah, searching the forum can be tricky sometimes. it’s not always the best at interpreting what you mean, and it requires exact phrasing and no typos. The short answer is that most paints and varnish styles are just fine. The longer answer is that you need to be sure that your ventilation setup is very good (it should be anyway) so you don’t breathe any fumes/smoke, and that you should probably let almost all finishes fully dry first.
Here’s some general info on laser safety of materials… check out #4:
Then you might want to google for stuff like this using the site: trick. So search google for “paint before lasering site:community.glowforge.com”. This limits your results to just be from the forum (community.glowforge.com).
https://www.google.com/search?q=paint+before+lasering+site%3Acommunity.glowforge.com
Google is so smart about figuring out what you mean, if you don’t quite know the correct terminology it can be a lifesaver. As you can see, there are lots of results to read through. Definitely get a snack and a drink before you dig in. 