Use separate accounts for people and agents
Paperclip supports personal, organization-shared, and dedicated-agent credentials. The choices shown during setup depend on the connector and connection method; not every method supports all three.
For example, managed GitHub offers My GitHub account or A dedicated account for an agent. Gmail offers personal or organization-shared access, not a dedicated-agent identity. A no-credential method has no account identity to choose. Assigning a connection to one agent does not change its credential type.
Credential types
Just me
"Agents use it only for runs where you are the responsible person."
Your own account, your own consent. An agent borrows it only on work where you are the responsible human. When someone else starts a run, this credential is not available to it.
Any active member can create one. Use it for a first connector, for anything touching a personal mailbox or calendar, and for evaluating a provider before the company commits to it.
Organization identity
One account shared with eligible people in the company. Setup can label this Any human in the organization; the connection's human audience determines whose runs may use it. You separately choose which agents may use the connection. Sharing a credential does not bypass either audience.
Creating one is a manager operation. Paperclip enforces this on the server: "Only a connection manager can share this credential with the organization."
Use it for a service where a shared bot account is the intended model, and where you want one place to revoke.
Dedicated agent identity
"That agent always uses this account, regardless of who starts the run."
For a method that supports it, such as managed GitHub, this is an account belonging to one agent. Paperclip asks "Which agent owns this GitHub account?" and binds the credential to it. Runs started by anyone use that account when that agent acts.
Also a manager operation: "Only connection managers can authorize a dedicated agent identity."
Use it when the provider's own audit trail matters. A dedicated GitHub account means commits, comments, and pull requests are attributable to the agent rather than to a human who happened to trigger the run.
Choosing
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is this my personal account? | Just me |
| Should the provider's logs name a separate account for the agent? | Use A dedicated account for an agent where supported; otherwise connect a separate provider account and restrict its human and agent audiences |
| Is there a real shared service account for this? | Organization identity |
| Am I still deciding whether to use this provider? | Just me |
What changes downstream
Attribution. A dedicated identity shows up in the provider as its own actor. A shared identity shows up as one account no matter who acted.
Revocation. Revoking an organization identity is immediate and total: "Installed agents lose this shared identity immediately." Revoking a personal grant affects only that person.
Shell tools. A dedicated GitHub identity is also handed to the run's shell, where per-tool Ask first does not apply. This shell access also applies to the managed personal GitHub identity; it is not unique to a dedicated-agent grant. See GitHub.
Changing later
The identity is fixed for a connection once it exists. On resume or reconnect, Paperclip treats the stored identity as authoritative and will not accept a contradictory grant kind from the client — that guard exists so a reconnect cannot quietly replace the credential behind an organization grant.
To move to a different identity, create a second connection with the identity you want, move agent access across, then delete the old one. Reauthorize, revoke, or disconnect covers the deletion.