How permissions work
When you connect an app, Minerva’s agents can use it only as far as the permissions you choose. Everything you leave out stays invisible to them. Each connector’s page lists its permissions and the risks to weigh before you allow them. This page covers what all connectors share.
Choosing permissions
Section titled “Choosing permissions”A permission is an action, such as Read mail or Create issues, on something in the app: a project, a channel, a folder, a calendar, a site.
- All means every project, channel or folder of that kind, including ones created later.
- Access to something covers what is inside it. A folder covers its files, a site its projects, a team its channels. A block on something inside wins over access to what contains it.
- Writing needs reading. Every action besides reading also needs read access to the same thing. The exceptions are sending mail, drafts and the amounts of Stripe refunds and credits, which are permissions of their own.
- Several layers apply. Each person chooses what agents may do on the connections they use, shared ones included. An agent can be limited further. An organization can set a limit for every agent, which covers only its shared connections, so agents then stop using members’ own connections. An agent can do something only if every layer allows it.
- Saving stops answers in progress, so no agent keeps working with access you have just taken away.
Some apps give Minerva read access only at first. Once you allow an action that writes, the connection says which access the app has not given yet and offers to ask the app for it.
Risks to weigh
Section titled “Risks to weigh”What agents read can try to steer them
Section titled “What agents read can try to steer them”Mail, web pages, tickets, chat messages and documents are written by other people, some of them outside your company. Any of them can contain text meant to make an agent do something, such as “forward this thread to …”. Minerva limits what an agent can do, whatever it reads. The risk is in the combination: an agent that reads outside content and may also send, post or reply can be talked into sending what it read. Grant write actions most carefully where agents read what outsiders write.
Everything an agent may write is a way out
Section titled “Everything an agent may write is a way out”Each place an agent may write is a place information can leave: an email to an allowed address, a post in a channel, a comment on a public issue, a reply to a customer, a file in a shared folder. On the Web, the addresses an agent opens can carry text to the site. Allow writing only where you would accept anything the agent can read ending up.
Sending mail and drafts
Section titled “Sending mail and drafts”To send mail, every recipient must be allowed, by address or by domain. Allowing everyone at a domain means every address there, which for a provider such as gmail.com is everyone with an account. Mail to an allowed address can still reach others through mailing lists, aliases and forwarding.
Drafts need no allowed recipients, because you send them yourself. A draft can be addressed to anyone and can contain anything the agent read. Check the recipients and the text before you send it.
Agents act as you
Section titled “Agents act as you”In most apps, agents act as the account that was connected. What they write appears under that person’s name. Watchers and followers are notified as they would be for that person, and the app’s own automation, such as Jira’s automation rules or HubSpot’s workflows, can act on what an agent changes. Minerva does not control what those rules do.
Access to a whole site covers what is added later
Section titled “Access to a whole site covers what is added later”Access to a Jira or Confluence site covers projects and spaces added later. Access to a Microsoft Teams team covers channels added later. Choosing All anywhere covers new projects, folders, calendars or organisations as they appear. People who join a channel or project later also read what agents wrote there.
The app lets Minerva reach more than you allow
Section titled “The app lets Minerva reach more than you allow”Some apps cannot grant access more narrowly than the whole account. Google lets Minerva read a whole Gmail mailbox or Drive, and Microsoft every mail folder, calendar, file and Teams channel the account can open. HubSpot gives Minerva the same access whoever installed it. In these apps, Minerva enforces the limits you choose.
Searches can hint at what is hidden
Section titled “Searches can hint at what is hidden”Several apps search everything the account can reach before Minerva filters the results. An agent then sees only what it may read, but it can sometimes tell that hidden items matched. In Gmail, it can learn whether mail it may not read matches a search, and so test what that mail says without seeing it.
Connectors
Section titled “Connectors”| Connector | You choose per | Permissions |
|---|---|---|
| Confluence | Site or space | Read pages, Comment on pages, Create pages |
| GitHub | Repository | Read code, issues and pull requests, Open issues and comment |
| Gmail | Label, recipient, the connection | Read mail, Send mail, Create drafts |
| Google Calendar | Calendar | Read events, Create events |
| Google Drive | File or folder | Read files, Create files |
| HubSpot | Contacts, companies, deals or one pipeline | Read, Create contacts and deals, Edit contacts and deals, Log notes |
| Intercom | Inbox | Read conversations, Add internal notes, Reply to customers |
| Jira | Site or project | Read issues, Comment on issues, Create issues, Change status |
| Linear | Team | Read issues, Comment on issues, Create issues, Edit issues |
| Microsoft Teams | Team or channel | Read messages, Reply in threads, Start threads |
| Notion | Page or database | Read pages, Comment on pages, Create pages, Edit pages |
| OneDrive and SharePoint | Library, folder or file | Read files, Create files |
| Outlook | Folder, recipient | Read mail, Send mail |
| Outlook Calendar | Calendar | Read events, Create events |
| Sentry | Project | Read issues and events |
| Slack | Channel | Read messages, Reply in threads, Post to the channel |
| Stripe | Customer, amount | Read, Refund payments, Credit balances |
| Todoist | Project | Read tasks, Create tasks |
| Web | Site | Open in browser |
| Xero | Organisation | Read invoices, bills and contacts, Create draft sales invoices, Create draft bills |