Assistant data and access
Connecting an assistant gives it permission to request selected Stuff data and perform selected actions. It does not automatically copy your entire library into the assistant.
What can a connection do?
A request must fit both your own permissions and the connection's approved scope and capabilities.
| Choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Selected spaces or folders | Limits the connection to those resources and their allowed contents |
| All current and future spaces | Broader access across the spaces available to your account, including future ones |
| Read only | Discover and read allowed content |
| Read and edit | Also create files and save changes |
| Organization and sharing | Also allows supported move, copy, trash, restore, deletion, and access-management actions |
Account-wide management also supports creating spaces and delegating connections. It is unnecessary for routine drafting. A connection cannot turn your viewer membership into editing permission, and public availability does not widen an authenticated agent's selected scope.
Folder contents can change: adding a new file inside a permitted folder can make it available to that connection. Review the scope when reorganizing material.
What information moves where?
- You ask your assistant to use Stuff.
- The assistant sends a tool request with its credential and relevant arguments.
- Stuff checks access and returns the requested allowed content, metadata, or result.
- The assistant provider processes that response under its own policies. It may keep material in the conversation or other provider-managed storage.
An assistant may send file text, instructions, or other context when executing a tool. Its own interface and policies control that behavior. Stuff permissions govern access to Stuff; they do not control all data movement within the assistant provider.
Prefer OAuth sign-in where supported: it avoids copying a secret. Use dedicated API keys for scripts and clients that require them. Keep keys in a private credential store or ignored environment file, never in shared documents or URLs.
Review, change, or revoke
Stuff → Agents displays connections, their scope, expiry, and usage information. Check access checks Stuff-side access; a fresh request from the assistant tests the complete connection. OAuth connections renew short-lived access tokens within their connection lifetime, currently up to 90 days. API keys have an expiry too.
To change permissions, revoke and reconnect with the intended scope. To stop an assistant, revoke its Stuff connection and disconnect it in the assistant. Illustrated revocation walkthrough.
Revocation does not remove previous conversation content, exports, or copies. Use the provider's own controls for those. Do not interpret an answer from conversation memory as evidence that revoked access still works.
Reviewing agent changes
Saved versions let you inspect or restore earlier content; restoration creates a new version. Attribution can identify the connection and any client/model information supplied with the edit. A model label supplied by a client is not independent proof of which model performed the work.
File contents may contain misleading instructions. Treat documents and tool results as data unless you deliberately ask the assistant to act on them. Giving an agent a document does not grant it permission to share other files or broaden its own access.