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Connectors and Connections are not the same

A Connector is the tool a Playbook says it needs. A Connection is the authorisation that lets a run reach it. Two words, and the difference matters.

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Contents

On this page

  1. 01A Connector is a declaration
  2. 02A Connection is an authorisation
  3. 03Why keep both words

These two words look like a spelling variation and they are not. Getting them the wrong way round makes it impossible to say who is responsible for what, so it is worth five minutes once.

A Connector is a declaration

A Connector is a tool a Playbook says it needs in order to run. It belongs to the definition, so it travels with the Playbook: whoever copies that Playbook gets the same declaration, because the method genuinely does depend on that tool.

Declaring one is not the same as having access to it. A Playbook can name a Connector for years without a single run ever reaching the tool behind it.

A Connection is an authorisation

A Connection is what a person creates when they authorise one of those tools. It binds an actual account to the capability the Playbook asked for, and it belongs to whoever gave the authorisation rather than to the Playbook.

Connector Connection
Belongs to the Playbook the person who authorised it
Travels when copied yes no
Answers what does this method need what may this run reach
Which side each word sits on

Why keep both words

Because collapsing them into one loses the thing that matters: a method can be shared, and an authorisation must not be.1 Publishing a Service hands somebody the declarations. It never hands them your access.

The Playbook says what it needs. You say what it may reach.One sentence version
References

Notes

  1. 1The catalogue of available Connectors is not a hand-kept list in this repository; it resolves through an external registry, which is one reason there is no page here per tool yet.
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