Netlify

Agents can work with your Netlify teams and sites — checking deploy status, inspecting configuration, and investigating build failures.

Before you connect

  • A Netlify account with access to the team and sites you want agents to use.
  • If you belong to several Netlify teams, know which one you want. Reach follows the account, and there is no team picker in Paperclip.

Connect Netlify

  1. Open Connectors and select Netlify.
  2. Read the access line above the main button. It says who the connection signs in as and which agents can use it. To pick a different identity, narrow the agents, or use another sign-in method, select Change.
  3. Select Sign in with Netlify and complete browser sign-in.

Paperclip registers its client with Netlify automatically, so there is nothing to set up in a developer console.

Choose access

Reach is the authorizing Netlify account's: the teams it belongs to and the sites within them, subject to Netlify's own role permissions.

The distinction that matters here is between observing a deploy and causing one:

What an agent does Consequence
Reads deploy status, logs, and build history Nothing changes. Safe to leave Allowed
Reads site and environment configuration May expose environment variable names, and sometimes values
Starts a deploy Depends on the target — see below
Changes site configuration Can change how the production site builds and behaves

Not every deploy is a production deploy. Netlify distinguishes production deploys from deploy previews and branch deploys, and only the first replaces what visitors see. Treat that as a reason to be careful about which deploy an agent can trigger, not a reason to assume every deploy is safe or that every deploy is live — check what a given action targets before allowing it.

Warning: A production deploy puts code in front of real users, and a configuration change can break a site. Keep deploy and configuration actions on Ask first or Off. Reading build logs to diagnose a failure is the common, safe use of this connector; triggering the rebuild is the part a person should approve.

Netlify environment variables frequently hold API keys. An agent that can read site configuration may surface them, so prefer Just agents I pick for a connection with configuration access. See Set action permissions.

Try it

List the Netlify sites this account can see, and tell me the status and time of the most recent deploy for one of them. Do not start a deploy.

Compare against the Netlify dashboard. A deploy-status read is the natural first check because it is also the connector's most common real use.

Note: Illustrative task, not a recorded test result.

Troubleshooting and limitations

Problem Likely cause Fix
A site is missing The authorizing account is not a member of that team Add it to the team in Netlify; no reconnect needed
An action is refused The account's Netlify role does not permit it Adjust the role in Netlify, or leave the capability off
A deploy started unexpectedly A deploy action was set to Allowed Set it to Ask first. Recovery is yours to do in Netlify — cancel the running build, or publish a previous deploy. Paperclip does not roll anything back
Build logs are truncated Netlify's own log retention and size limits Check the full log in the Netlify dashboard
An expected capability is absent Netlify's server does not expose it Use Refresh actions; otherwise it is unavailable
Needs attention The grant expired or was revoked Select Reconnect

Limitations: one Netlify account per connection. No team or site filter inside Paperclip. Paperclip cannot roll back a deploy — do that in Netlify.