DottaandPaperclip
2de43fc909
## Thinking Path > - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for work. > - Each task has one assignee. Explicit assignment and review requests select who should act. > - An agent mention started another agent on a task it did not own. Native attachment staging then rejected that run. > - Allowing that run through startup could also let two agents work on the same task. > - Mentions should identify relevant context. They should not start work or forward comments to other tasks. > - A personal app installed on a shared agent must also wait until tool use to resolve the current user's grant. > - This pull request removes mention dispatch and keeps missing personal app credentials from blocking startup. ## Linked Issues or Issue Description **What happened?** A native agent mentioned on another agent's task failed with `paperclip_runner_attachment_staging_not_authorized`. The source task could already be complete. A nearby optional-app warning was a separate problem: personal app tools were excluded when their shared health state required attention. **Expected behavior** An agent mention is context only. It does not wake the agent, take ownership, or copy a comment onto another task. Normal feedback still reaches the assignee. Assignment and explicit review requests still dispatch work. An unavailable personal app does not block startup or produce a startup warning. Tool use requests the current user's authorization and never uses another user's grant. **Steps to reproduce** 1. Assign a task to agent A. Post a comment that mentions agent B, including a comment that closes A's task or references B's child task. 2. Confirm the comment retains its agent link and B receives no run or deferred wake. A can still receive normal feedback. 3. Install an active personal MCP connection on B. Give only Alice a grant and leave shared health at `error`. 4. Explicitly assign work to B for another user. Confirm it can finish without using the app. 5. Ask B to use the app. Confirm its tool call shows an inline connection request for the current user. Related work: Refs #11144. This change uses the existing execution-time personal grant resolution. ## What Changed - Remove mention dispatch from standalone comments and issue updates. Remove implicit forwarding of parent comments to a mentioned worker's child task. - Ignore new requests with the legacy mention wake reason before creating a run or deferred request. Preserve already accepted queue entries, which can combine assignments and feedback with a later mention. - Remove the native mention admission, staging, and finalization exceptions from this PR. Native task ownership checks remain intact. - Keep active, installed personal app tools available despite shared health errors. Remove optional-app startup warnings. Tool execution retains the current user's grant and policy checks. - Update agent instructions and product/API docs. Refresh generated capability source anchors. ## Verification - Red: comment-route regressions reproduced extra agent wakes and child comment forwarding. A separate regression proved that cancelling by the last coalesced reason could drop an accepted assignment. - Green: the targeted route, wake queue, heartbeat, workspace, responsible-user, MCP discovery, and HTTP gateway suites passed. The final queue and heartbeat rerun passed 104 tests, the restored queue adapter passed 56, and both comment-route suites passed 135. These include accepted assignment preservation, rejection of new mention requests, and normal assignee feedback. - `pnpm -r typecheck` and `pnpm build` passed locally. The full local `pnpm test:run` attempt was interrupted for review/CI fixes, so it is not claimed as a completed local pass. It exposed a cleanup timing race in the concurrent-mention assertion, now fixed and verified across 10 repetitions. CI also exposed an obsolete test waiting for the removed mention lookup; it was reproduced and fixed, then both comment suites passed. Final full-suite verification is through CI. - Final head `bd9ea4cb05a8f081c54e017760a8999f9ea6ef44`: 54 checks passed, 2 Storybook checks intentionally skipped; no pending or failing checks. Full CI includes general and serialized suites, all 8 browser shards, runner verification, typecheck, build, and canary dry run. Greptile is 5/5 on this exact commit, with no unresolved findings. - One unchanged Cursor adapter test hit its 10-second CI timeout. All 5 tests in that file passed locally; one retry of its CI shard passed all 674 tests (3 skipped). The aggregate verification gate then passed. No code or timeout was changed for that retry. - Live browser check: inserted a structured mention with the picker on a human-owned task. The saved link remained visible. Database checks found zero new runs and zero wake requests. - Live Codex runner check: explicitly assigned that task with the unavailable personal app attached. The run succeeded and committed completion without using the app or creating a connection card. - Live browser follow-up: asked the assignee to call PostHog and mentioned another enabled agent as context. Only the assignee ran. It succeeded and displayed the existing inline connection card. Only Alice's grant existed; the run belonged to a different user. - The HTTP regression covers tool discovery with no provider calls or connection cards, first use returning the current user's authorization request, and successful retry after that user's grant exists. - App checks use an isolated local fixture and a fake MCP provider. They do not use production app credentials. ## Risks - Intentional behavior change: workflows that used mentions to wake agents must use assignment, a bounded child task, or an explicit review request. - Already accepted queue entries retain their prior rules. An old entry can combine assignment or feedback with a later mention; its last reason cannot safely identify mention-only work. New mention requests create no run or deferred wake. - Personal apps with a shared health error remain discoverable. Actual tool use still requires the responsible user's grant and existing policy gates. - No database migration or public API schema change. ## Model Used - OpenAI GPT-6 through Codex, with reasoning, repository tools, code execution, and browser testing. The exact serving model ID and context-window size are not exposed in this session. - Live native-run verification used `gpt-6-astra` through the Codex provider. ## 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.
Long-term memory: Experimental memory connectors.
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.