What is a Connection?
A Connection is the access you have authorised, which is what turns a tool a Playbook asks for into a tool a run can actually reach on your behalf.
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A Connection on YAMO is access you have authorised. It is what turns a tool a Playbook asks for into a tool a run can actually reach on your behalf.
A Connector is the request. A Connection is the answer to it. You make one once, by signing in to the tool and granting access, and from then on every Playbook that asks for that tool finds it.
Why these are two words and not one
Because they are two things, owned by different people at different times, and collapsing them loses something real.
The Connector belongs to the method: it travels with the Playbook, it is the same for everyone who runs it, and it says nothing about any particular account. The Connection belongs to the account: it is yours, it can be revoked, it can expire, and it says nothing about which Playbooks might use it.
Publishing a Playbook publishes its Connectors, because the requirement is part of what the work is. It never publishes your Connections. That is why a customer's access is a question they answer, not one the operator answered for them.
What YAMO holds, and what it does not
Authorisation happens on the tool's own sign-in screen, not on a YAMO form. What comes back and is stored is a reference to that authorised connection, not the provider's credential itself. Revoking access at the provider ends the Connection, and disconnecting on YAMO stops it resolving.
A Connection also carries one thing you are asked at the moment you make it: whose account it is. Your own, or a client's. It is recorded once and it does not change, because "whose data was this" is a question that has to be answerable later.
When one is missing
A run does not improvise. If a required Connector has no live Connection, the run stops before any step executes and names what is missing, and the setup checklist says the same thing before you ever get that far. A Connection whose access has expired is reported as needing reconnection rather than quietly failing mid run.
What to read next
- What is a Connector? for the other half.
- Connection for the one-sentence version.
- Connectors for how one is authorised.
More in Concepts
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An Instance is one customer working relationship with a Service: their settings, their files, their connected tools and every run they have made so far.What is a Run?
A Run is one execution of a Playbook inside an Instance, from whatever started it to the finished artifact. It is the unit YAMO meters and charges for.Pricing
How YAMO charges: you pay for the runs you make, and nothing for the ones you do not. What a run is, what it includes, and what publishing costs.Who it's for
The six kinds of expert YAMO is built for, and what changes when the method you already follow becomes a Service that somebody else can run.
Open a Playbook that does this
Every template in the library publishes its contract and a real example output.