Connections

Connections are how agents reach outside services — Slack, Gmail, Google Sheets, Notion, Attio, GitHub, and ~1,000 more. An agent declares what it needs in its connections: field; each operator authorizes the accounts their runs act as.

Per-user authorization

Connections are authorized per user, per workspace. Because a run executes as a specific acting user, it uses that user’s authorized accounts. A manual run uses yours; a scheduled run uses the automation owner’s; an event run uses the trigger owner’s. If an agent needs a service nobody has connected, the sidebar surfaces an “Action needed” prompt with a Connect button.

Three substrates

Substrate	When to pick it
Composio	The default. ~1,000 services wrapped as REST tools. Lowercase slugs (slack, googlesheets).
Native MCP	The provider has an official MCP server — richer, schema-aware tools, fewer round trips, and TAS-managed OAuth.
Secrets	A plain API key for a service with no OAuth (e.g. Clay), read by sidecar Python tools.

Prefer Native MCP when the provider is in TAS’s native catalog: it uses the provider’s official server and TAS-managed OAuth (just click Connect — no bring-your-own OAuth app). Use Composio for providers not in that catalog.

Slugs differ between substrates

The tool slugs for the same provider differ between Composio and Native MCP. If you switch a connection’s source:, update the agent’s tools: list to match.

Declaring connections on an agent

connections:
  - { type: slack, tools: [SLACK_SEND_MESSAGE] }
  - { type: attio, source: native-mcp, name: default, tools: [run-basic-report] }

• type: is the provider slug.
• source: defaults to composio; set native-mcp for native providers.
• name: is the connection slot (“default” unless you keep multiple accounts of the same provider, e.g. work vs personal).
• tools: narrows what the agent can call (works on both substrates).

Authorizing and reconnecting

Authorize and manage connections under Connections. If a credential expires or is revoked, the connection is marked stale and runs that need it fail with a clear message — reconnect from the same page. See Troubleshooting.

For doing deterministic I/O over a connection from Python, see Sidecar Python tools.

Secrets (API keys)

Some services — like Clay — authenticate with a plain API key, not OAuth. For these, use a Secret: a free-form, workspace-level key an admin sets once under Connections → Secrets and the whole workspace shares (unlike the per-user OAuth connections above). Secrets are read by an agent’s sidecar Python tools via tas_tools.secret("name") — they attach no tools and are invisible to the model.

• Add one (admin): Connections → Secrets → name (e.g. clay) + value. It’s encrypted at rest and shown masked.

• Use it in a tool: tas_tools.secret("clay") returns the value.

• Optionally declare it on the agent so the studio prompts an admin to set a missing one:

  connections:
    - { type: clay, source: secret }