DottaandPaperclip
a10702a878
## Thinking Path > - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for work. > - Chat connectors let people start and continue agent tasks from other services. > - A Slack conversation needs access to its surrounding discussion and Slack collaboration tools. > - The agent must use the linked requester's access and keep private material within its permitted audience. > - This pull request adds Slack tools through the existing connector contribution and approval framework. > - People can ask an invited bot to read a discussion, create follow-up tasks, and collaborate in Slack. ## Linked Issues or Issue Description **Subsystem affected** Chat connectors, connector runtime, tool gateway, and connection Settings/Access. **Problem or motivation** Slack-origin tasks can receive messages but cannot inspect the rest of a channel or act through the originating bot. People must paste context or configure a separate integration. **Proposed solution** Supply typed Slack tools and a bundled skill only to the originating task and assigned agent. Resolve the linked requester on the server. Check bot and requester access before reads and writes. Use existing durable actions and approvals. Retrieved messages remain source material. **Alternatives considered** Slack's user-OAuth MCP server does not replace the customer-created chat bot. An unrestricted Web API proxy would not provide suitable permission or publication boundaries. **Roadmap alignment** This extends the existing MCP Tool Gateway & Apps work with a provider contribution. It does not add a task dispatcher or a separate Slack task lifecycle. Related: #11144 covers generic per-user MCP grant execution; this change binds Slack bot operations to chat-origin tasks. ## What Changed - Add 39 typed Slack tools, a method/scope matrix, a bundled skill, and shared native/HTTP execution. - Bind tools to company, endpoint, task, run, assigned agent, and admitted linked requester. Check membership and revocation on each call and before queued writes. - Add paginated reads, bounded history search, source links, messages, file uploads, reactions, pins, bookmarks, topics, canvases, lists, and approved channel operations. - Restrict private-source publication, including automatic replies and uploaded deliverables. Keep other people's bot DMs inaccessible. - Reuse action receipts, idempotency, approvals, and reconciliation. Suppress an identical explicit-send/final-reply duplicate. Return governed results through their verified originating conversation. - Add endpoint-bound personal search OAuth storage and lifecycle. Keep native real-time search disabled until a runtime meets Slack's transient-result requirements. Current runtimes use bounded history search. - Show capabilities, scope upgrades, and personal search authorization in Settings/Access and Storybook. Document provider and runtime limits. ## Verification - Current head `0eb21cba4`: CI checks pass and Greptile is 5/5 with no unresolved findings. One unchanged rapid-callback timing test passed on a single CI retry. - Approval presentation regressions cover board-comment precedence and exact Slack publication; the expanded database assertion passed in CI. The local PostgreSQL startup probe later became unavailable, so that final assertion was verified in CI. Slack setup and failed-run retry browser tests also passed locally. - Full workspace typecheck and build passed. Server typecheck/build passed again after the approval routing fix. - Broad local suites passed in separate groups: server 12,958 tests, UI 6,555, shared 770, skills catalog 20, and other workspace packages 2,652. CLI and serialized server checks passed after environment/timeout retries. These are composite results, not one uninterrupted green full-suite invocation. - PostgreSQL authority regression covers admitted identity, cross-company/task/agent rejection, recovery, retained-session revocation, OAuth refresh/disconnect races, approval execution, exact publication lineage, retries, uncertain sends, and duplicate suppression. - Gateway/response regressions cover separate-origin approval batches and durable continuation. Focused provider, access, search, native runtime, route, and AgentMail regressions pass. - Storybook capability, missing-scope, OAuth configuration, authorization, and disconnect states were inspected in the browser. - Live staging: read a channel decision and full thread, create exactly two assigned backlog tasks, add a reaction, paginate discovery to exhaustion, and return bounded search matches with source links and coverage. - Live staging: create/edit/read a canvas and list, inspect the canvas in Slack, post/edit one message, and create a channel only after approval. New channels remain disabled for responses. - Live staging: read a response-disabled channel from the requester's DM; writes to that channel were denied. The test setting was restored. - Final live retest passed: explicit file upload and exact content read-back; approved deletion of only the disposable bot message; continuation confirmation returned to the original Slack thread without repeating the action. - Optional OAuth, private multi-user boundaries, native RTS, and CLI provider execution are not fully live-qualified. The staging agent initially supplied malformed tool arguments; valid arguments succeeded, and the tool/skill descriptions now emphasize UUID write keys. ## Risks - Existing Slack apps must add scopes and reinstall for new capabilities. Provider plans and document permissions can still restrict operations. - Instances need an independent `PAPERCLIP_TOOL_ACTION_SIGNING_SECRET` for governed tool actions. The staging instance was configured with explicit operator approval; fleet provisioning is a separate gap. - Native RTS is not exposed on current transcript-retaining runtimes. Bounded history scans are deliberately reported as incomplete. Inline file reads support text/canvas content up to 256 KiB; other types return metadata. - Private document edits fail closed when the full audience cannot be verified. Uncertain effects other than posts/uploads require inspection instead of blind retries. - Shared approval-delivery code now separates outcomes by source run to preserve origin boundaries. No database migration is required. - A separate completion-validator gap remains when the agent cites a prior run's registered artifact during finalization. It asked for registration again even though Slack delivery was confirmed. This change does not add a connector-specific task-completion policy. ## Model Used OpenAI GPT-6 through Codex, with repository tools, code execution, and browser testing. The exact deployed model identifier and context-window size were not exposed in the session. ## Checklist - [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context to this change - [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability details) - [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate planned core work - [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked them above - [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes #` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant issue template - [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip` URLs) - [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`) and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details - [x] I have run tests locally and they pass - [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable - [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes - [x] I have considered and documented any risks above - [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green - [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups - [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before requesting merge --------- Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
Apps, Connections, and Integrations
Audience: internal engineers and product contributors working on integrations.
Start here when adding a provider: Connection authoring runbook. It is the canonical agent tutorial from provider research and protocol classification through manifest generation, branding, secrets, deterministic tests, real-account proof, and PR submission.
Runtime authentication: AI Connections.
Provider notes: Google Workspace, Gmail, PostHog, AgentMail, and iMessage Photon. Optional credential custody: Vercel Connect.
Post-read action: classify a new integration request, pick the right Paperclip layer to change, and avoid creating a parallel connection framework.
Decision Record
Board decisions from PAP-13211 make the Apps v2 substrate on the PAP-10341 branch canonical:
- D1: Apps v2 is the substrate. The active model is
tool_applications,tool_connections, catalog entries, profiles, policy rules, action requests, gateway sessions, audit events, and runtime slots. Connections v1 is retired as an implementation path. - D2: one credential authority per connection, brokered projections. The
default is the Paperclip instance vault: durable third-party credentials live
in
company_secretsas secret refs. A reviewed remote MCP method may instead opt in to Vercel Connect, in which case Vercel is the durable credential authority and Paperclip stores only the connector reference and redacted grant metadata. A connection must never mix those two sources. Adapter config, plugin config, harness credential files, and run environments may receive only brokered or projected credentials. - D3: the vocabulary and three-door IA are product law. The default product doors are Apps, Connections, and Review. Protocol and operator-depth concepts live behind Developer or Advanced surfaces.
- D4: unification lands on PAP-10341. Pages, CircleBack-style harness MCP OAuth, provider gallery work, and plugin-provided integrations converge on this branch instead of spawning new integration substrates.
- D5: inbound stays thin. External clients that call Paperclip use scoped Paperclip tokens and existing profiles/rules. They do not get a separate permission model.
Canonical Object Model
Use connection as the unifying noun. A connection is four things:
- A stored credential reference.
- A capability catalog.
- A governance layer.
- An audit trail.
Everything else is an axis on that object:
| Axis | Values | It answers |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | outbound, inbound | Who is the client? |
| Transport | MCP, native REST/OpenAPI, OAuth app install, webhook | How do bytes move? |
| Auth mode | OAuth, API key/PAT, app installation, none | What does the secret represent? |
| Credential owner | company, user, run | Whose identity acts? |
| Packaging | catalog entry, plugin, skill | How does it ship? |
MCP is a transport, not a product category. "Install the Discord app", "connect Google Drive", and "add an MCP endpoint" all produce governed connections with different transport/auth values.
Layer Stack
When you are unsure where a change belongs, place it on the narrowest layer that solves the problem:
| Layer | Owns | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Surface | user-facing Apps, Connections, Review, Developer/Advanced screens | gallery cards, setup wizard, review queue |
| Governance | profiles, bindings, allow/ask-first/block rules, quarantine, audit | read-only profile, ask-first write policy |
| Capability | action catalogs, schemas, risk classes, changed-tool review | search_issues, create_comment, schema hash |
| Credential | company_secrets, OAuth broker, credential resolver, token broker |
Slack bot token ref, Google OAuth refresh token ref |
| Identity | actor attribution and token exchange | board user, agent run, first-party service identity |
| Transport | how the external system is reached | remote HTTP MCP, local stdio, REST/OpenAPI, webhook |
The agent should not hold a durable provider credential. It should hold a Paperclip run/session token; the server or broker resolves the connection, checks governance, invokes the provider, and writes audit.
Identity vs. connections
Signing a user in and connecting a resource are different planes with different owners, different token profiles, and different homes. Do not merge them. This section is the public, connections-side statement of the identity model so connector implementers inherit the rule without depending on private identity-service documentation or re-deriving it.
| Plane | Question | Lives where | Token profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1. Sign-in methods | Who are you? | paperclip-id (id.paperclip.ing → Account) |
Minimal-scope provider tokens (openid email profile), used once to authenticate, encrypted at rest, never exported |
| P2. Connections (Apps) | What may your agents touch? | Paperclip App instances (tool_connections), acquired via the connect broker for hosted + self-hosted |
Rich-scope, long-lived resource tokens in the instance's encrypted vault; per-agent grants; risk-tier policy defaults |
| P3. Login with Paperclip | Who may authenticate against us? | paperclip-id OIDC provider + DB-backed client registry |
Our ES256 ID/access tokens issued by us to registered RPs (instances, the broker, future third parties) |
Everything in doc/connections/ — the First-30 matrix,
the connection authoring runbook, and the connect-broker work —
lives on plane P2. It never acquires, stores, or brokers a P1 sign-in token.
The standing rule (D7)
Adopted as a standing rule (decision D7) with the identity-model plan. State it verbatim in any P2 design so the app-store work cannot drift into merging the planes:
Sign-in tokens are never reused as resource tokens; id.paperclip.ing never stores resource tokens; no connections hub on the ID service.
P2 tokens flow broker → instance vault as pass-through only; the id.paperclip.ing Account page therefore must not grow a "Connections" hub. The reasons to hold the planes apart (from the plan §3):
- Scope discipline. Sign-in wants the narrowest grant; connections want deliberately broad ones. One button that does both is how you grant repo access just to log in.
- Blast radius. id.paperclip.ing holding every customer's Vercel/Slack/GitHub resource tokens would make it the single juiciest target in the fleet; the broker is intentionally pass-through.
- Self-hosted symmetry. Instances own their vaults, so self-hosters don't depend on our uptime to use their own connections.
- Legibility. Sign-in and connections answer different user questions, and every product we benchmarked (Vercel, Railway, GitHub, Google) keeps them on separate pages with separate names.
The explicit Vercel Connect exception does not change D7 or merge P1 and P2.
The operator chooses Vercel as the P2 credential authority for an individual
connection. id.paperclip.ing is not involved, and neither sign-in tokens nor
provider tokens pass through it. The deployment's Vercel access token or
workload OIDC identity is bootstrap authority for that external vault, not a
provider resource credential.
Naming alignment
Use the surface-correct name for each plane; they intentionally differ:
| Surface | Plane | Name to use |
|---|---|---|
| Paperclip App instances | P2 | "Connections" |
| id.paperclip.ing Account | P1 | "Ways to sign in" |
| id.paperclip.ing admin | P3 | "OIDC clients" (until the app store productizes it) |
Packaging Rule
Default to a catalog entry when an integration can be described as metadata: manifest, auth config, action catalog, resource filters, and policy defaults.
Use a plugin only when the integration needs product code such as custom UI pages, its own tables, workers, migrations, routines, or specialized ingestion. A plugin may bundle catalog entries, but it must not bypass the connection, profile, policy, credential, and audit model.
Use a skill for agent instructions. Skills may use connections; they must not own durable tokens.
Canonical Docs
- Glossary defines product and internal terms.
- Identity vs. connections is the public statement of the P1/P2/P3 boundary and the D7 standing rule for connections work.
- Security threat model harvests the keeper from PAP-2359 and maps it onto Apps v2.
- First-30 matrix harvests the keeper from PAP-2432 and is the source matrix for connector playbook work.
- Connecting any remote MCP server is the baseline: how an operator connects a standards-compliant remote MCP endpoint with no Paperclip code change, and how sign-in resolves a client.
- Connection authoring runbook is the one end-to-end, agent-executable guide for adding a vendor as a catalog entry on Apps v2: research, connection-type selection, OAuth/API-key/generated-URL setup, encrypted credential handling, branding, implementation, browser and live-provider testing, verification, and PR submission.
- Vercel Connect operator guide documents the optional external credential source, deployment flags, runtime resolution, recovery, and smoke requirements.
- MCP access governance remains the operator runbook for the current gateway, profile, policy, approval, runtime, and audit APIs.
Migration Notes
Connections v1 contributed useful policy, UX, and rollout thinking, but its
implementation branch is no longer the target. When you see old tickets or code
using connections, connection_grants, or a provider-directory mental model,
translate the intent into Apps v2:
| Connections v1 intent | Apps v2 home |
|---|---|
| Provider directory | Apps gallery / tool_applications |
| Configured provider instance | Connection / tool_connections |
| Grant allowlist | Profiles, profile bindings, policies |
| Resource filters | Policy/profile conditions plus provider config |
| Tool broker | Tool gateway and runtime supervisor |
| Connection UX tail | Apps, Connections, Review, Developer/Advanced IA |
Do not add new work to the retired v1 branch. If an old ticket still describes a valid product gap, retarget it to an active Apps v2 issue or close it as superseded with a link to the replacement.