Connecting a service

Before an agent can call a third-party service, you need to connect it once. This page walks through that flow, from picking a connector to using it inside an agent.

1. Pick a connector

Open the connectors list and search for the service you want — a first-party connector (Slack, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and 70+ others), a Composio toolkit, or one of the vetted MCP servers. If you're not sure which one you need, see the full list in connectors overview.

2. Authenticate

How you authenticate depends on the connector:

• One-click OAuth. Many connectors — Google Workspace, Slack, HubSpot, and others that support it — let you click "Connect" and complete the provider's OAuth flow in a popup. When it closes, the connection is live.
• API key or token. For services without OAuth support, you paste an API key or token directly. Check the service's own settings for where to generate one — RunAIAgents doesn't create it for you.

Either way, whatever you provide is encrypted (AES-256-GCM) as soon as you submit it.

3. Name the connection

Give the connection a clear name, especially if you expect to connect the same service more than once — for example, separate Slack connections for a support workspace and an internal one. This is the name you'll see when wiring the connector into an agent later.

4. Use it in an agent

With the connection saved, open the agent you're building (conversational or canvas builder) and add the connector as a tool the agent can use. From that point, the agent calls it through connector_action as part of its normal tool-calling loop — you don't write any integration code.

If you're building conversationally, you can also just describe what you want ("send a Slack message when this happens") and the builder will wire in the right connector and connection for you, prompting you to connect the service first if you haven't already.

A note on credentials

Once a credential is saved, it's never displayed again — not in the UI, not in an API response. If you need to rotate it, disconnect the connection and reconnect with a new key or token rather than looking for a way to view the old one.

Next steps

Once a connector is wired into an agent, you'll usually want the agent to run automatically rather than by hand. See triggers and schedules for the ways to start a run.