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Use your Mind · GUIDE 05

Connections and capture

Connect email, calendars or other services to bring useful updates into the Mind. New items go to an inbox first, where someone can decide what should be kept.

SYSTEM MAP · 05 From a connected service to memory A new item arrives in an inbox with its source. A person checks it before saving it to company knowledge.
Email or calendar an account you connected
Mind inbox source attached
Person reviews it save, fix or ignore
Company area the right place for it

01

Choose what to connect

The owner chooses the account and what the Mind may read. A calendar connection might read a shared leadership calendar but leave personal calendars alone.

Connections start with the smallest useful amount of access.

02

New items go to an inbox

A new email or calendar event arrives with a link to where it came from. Repeated copies are removed.

Nothing becomes permanent company knowledge just because it arrived.

03

Review before saving

Someone can save the useful part, correct it or ignore it. They also choose the company area where it belongs.

The original source stays attached so another person can check it later.

04

Disconnect at any time

Disconnecting an account stops new information from coming in. Information that your team already reviewed and saved stays in the Mind until you remove it.

NEXT GUIDE · 06 Skills, apps and automations Tell the Mind how to work, what it may use and when to run. →
Request a Mind

The founding cohort is small on purpose. Each Mind is brought up with its owner.

MENSARA.AI · CONNECTIONS AND CAPTURE · MACHINE SURFACE · TEXT/MARKDOWN

---
title: Connections and capture
canonical_url: https://app.mensara.ai/how-it-works/connections-and-capture
feature: connections-and-capture
audience: llm-agent
last_verified: 2026-08-11
availability: partly-available
signup_supported: false
interfaces:
  - portal
  - cli
---

# Connections and capture

Explains source connections, sensors, provenance, deduplication, inbox review, credential boundaries, and promotion into memory zones.

## Concept model

- A connection authorizes access to an external provider account.
- A sensor captures within that connection's scope.
- The inbox is a review boundary between observations and trusted memory.

## Capabilities

- Capture approved source events with provenance.
- Deduplicate and route observations.
- Disconnect a provider without rewriting stored memory.

## Prerequisites

- A supported connector on the provisioned Mind.
- Human authorization to the external provider.
- A destination inbox and permitted memory zone.

## Authorization

- Provider scope and Mind zone grants are separate checks.
- Connector credentials belong to the owner and are not available to ordinary prompts.
- Write-back requires an explicit capability; read access does not imply it.

## Connection or use flow

1. Owner authorizes a narrow provider scope.
2. Sensor captures an event and attaches provenance.
3. Inbox deduplicates and presents it for review.
4. Accepted material moves to working or trusted memory in an authorised zone.

## Refusals and recovery

- Expired provider credential: pause capture and request owner reauthorization.
- Unsupported source: do not simulate a connector; describe the manual capture path.
- Unclear destination zone: hold the item in the inbox rather than leaking it into a broad zone.

## Ownership and data boundaries

- Provider secrets are stored separately from knowledge files.
- Disconnect stops future capture; retained approved knowledge follows normal deletion rules.
- Source terms and provider permissions still apply.

## Availability and limits

**Partly available** The connection framework and read-only Gmail and calendar capture are part of the current product; the supported connection catalog is still small.
- Connections should begin read-only unless a write path is explicitly approved.
- Connector availability varies by provisioned Mind and provider.

## Signup and provisioning

`signup_supported: false`

After human-assisted Mind provisioning, the Owner connects each provider interactively and chooses scopes and destination zones.

No autonomous signup or provisioning endpoint is documented because none is offered today. An agent must stop and involve the human owner.

## System diagram

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  A[Approved external source] --> B[Read-only sensor]
  B --> C[Inbox: provenance + dedupe]
  C --> D{Human review}
  D -->|promote| E[Memory zone]
  D -->|ignore| X[No durable change]
```

## Runnable example

```text
Source: shared leadership calendar
Scope: read event metadata only
Destination: leadership inbox
Promotion rule: human review required
On auth failure: pause and notify Owner
```

## Related

- [Memory](https://app.mensara.ai/how-it-works/memory)
- [Skills, apps and automations](https://app.mensara.ai/how-it-works/skills-apps-automations)
- [Zones and permissions](https://app.mensara.ai/how-it-works/zones-and-permissions)