Devin FoleyandPaperclip
5b8b2b38ca
## Thinking Path > - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for work. > - Agents reach external services through the Apps catalog. Each catalog entry is a reviewed `AppDefinition` that wires a provider's hosted MCP server into Paperclip's shared vault, grants, policies, gateway, and audit trail. > - Neon is a widely used serverless Postgres provider with an official hosted MCP server, but it is not in the catalog. Teams that run their databases on Neon must use the generic "connect your own MCP server" path, which has no branding, no guidance, and no project or read-only controls. > - The connector playbook requires a catalog entry for a provider like this: the hosted server supports dynamic client registration and bearer API keys, and the common definition fields can express every option Paperclip can serialize. > - This pull request adds the Neon definition, its official artwork, the research and permission-review ledger rows, documentation, and deterministic tests, without any provider-specific runtime code. > - The benefit is a one-click, governed Neon connection with optional project pinning and read-only mode, and a documented path to live qualification. ## Linked Issues or Issue Description **Problem or motivation** Neon is a common Postgres host for the applications agents work on, but Paperclip's Apps catalog has no Neon entry. Operators who want agents to inspect schemas, run SQL, or manage branches must paste the MCP URL into the generic remote-MCP flow, which gives no branding, no provider guidance, no project boundary, and no read-only switch. **Proposed solution** Add a catalog-only Neon connection built from the connector playbook: browser sign-in through Neon's dynamic client registration with the reviewed `read` and `write` scopes, or a customer API key sent as an Authorization bearer header. Both methods expose Neon's documented `projectId` pin and `readonly` switch as optional Advanced fields. Every discovered tool stays governed by the normal per-action policies. **Alternatives considered** A plugin was not needed because no custom UI, tables, workers, or webhooks are involved. A separate read-only method was not added because the playbook treats read-only switches as advanced fields rather than methods. Neon's repeatable `category` query filter was left out because tenant fields serialize lists as one comma-joined value, so it cannot be sent correctly without new runtime code; per-action policies cover catalog narrowing instead. **Roadmap alignment** This extends the existing self-serve remote-MCP connection catalog and does not overlap planned core work. ## What Changed - Added the `neon` provider to `scripts/ingest-app-definitions.mjs` (category, API-key placement, methods, tenant fields, guidance, warnings) and regenerated `packages/shared/src/app-definitions/neon.json` plus the generated registry. - Added the Neon row to the self-serve MCP research ledger with `dcr_or_api_key` auth and risk tier S4. - Added permission reviews for `neon/mcp-oauth` (explicit scopes `read`, `write`, taken from Neon's live authorization-server metadata) and `neon/mcp-api-key` (provider key), with evidence links. - Added Neon's official tile icon (`ui/public/brands/apps/neon.png`, copied byte-for-byte from the icon linked by neon.com) and the brand manifest entry. - Added prosumer gallery copy for the Neon card. - Added `doc/connections/NEON.md` (service involvement, endpoints, administrator setup, capabilities and policy, manifest, brand provenance, validation hook) and linked it from the connections README and the permission audit. - Tests: Neon definition shape, store visibility and artwork, URL recognition, reviewed scopes with scope-widening rejection, URL projection of the project pin and read-only flag, invalid project ID rejection, the connect form's API-key gating, and the pinned catalog counts. ## Verification - `pnpm exec vitest run packages/shared/src/app-definitions.test.ts packages/shared/src/app-definitions-url.test.ts` — 34 passed. - `pnpm exec vitest run server/src/__tests__/tool-access-service.test.ts` — 367 passed. - `pnpm exec vitest run ui/src/pages/apps/AppsConnect.test.tsx ui/src/pages/apps/Browse.test.tsx ui/src/lib/app-brand-assets.test.ts ui/src/pages/apps/AppLogo.brand-assets.test.tsx` — all passed. - `node scripts/check-app-brand-assets.mjs` and `node --test scripts/app-brand-validation.test.mjs` — passed. - `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/shared typecheck`, `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/server typecheck`, `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/ui typecheck`, `pnpm check:token-gates` — clean. - Manual: in a local instance, open Apps → Browse, confirm the Neon card and icon, open `/apps/connect?source=neon`, confirm both methods, the Advanced project pin and read-only toggle, and that Connect enables after an API key is entered. The operator completed a live connection against a Neon account on this build. - Live metadata probed on 2026-10-02: both `.well-known` documents at `mcp.neon.tech` return the recorded endpoints and scopes; an unauthenticated `initialize` returns 401 with `resource_metadata`. ## Risks - Low risk to existing providers: the change is additive catalog data plus tests. The generated registry only gains one import. - Neon's hosted server grants broad project and database management. The definition carries two warnings, recommends a development project, and keeps every write under the normal action policies; the read-only switch is enforced by Neon's server, not locally. - The permission-review ledger records live proof for both methods as not run; the full lifecycle checklist in `doc/connections/NEON.md` still needs a documented pass before the entry is considered fully qualified. > For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`. ## Model Used - Claude Fable 5.1 (`claude-fable-5-1`) in Claude Code, with extended thinking and tool use (shell, file editing, browser verification). ## 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, Asana, PostHog, Neon, 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.