#Connected Services — GitHub, Gmail, Slack & More

Your ambientChat assistant already knows your stuff. Connect an outside service — GitHub, Gmail, Calendar, Slack, Linear, and more — and it can reach their stuff too, right inside the same conversation.

#What It Does

Connected Services lets ambientChat reach out to other tools you use and pull their capabilities into chat. Connect your Gmail and you can ask the assistant to find a reservation email; connect GitHub and it can look up an issue; connect your calendar and it can check next week — all without leaving ambientChat, and all combined with your own inventory, documents, and context.

Under the hood, each connection is an MCP server (the same open standard ambientChat itself speaks). Any service that offers an MCP endpoint can be connected by its URL, and the well-known ones (GitHub, Linear, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Slack, Mercury, and others) sign you in with OAuth — you approve access on the service's own login screen, and ambientChat never sees your password.

Not to be confused with Context Sharing. Connected Services brings outside tools into ambientChat. The separate Context Sharing setting (see Privacy & Your Data) controls the opposite direction — how much of your ambientChat context is shared out to Claude, brand apps, and partners. Different feature, opposite arrow.

#How to Use It

#iOS App

#Connecting a Service

  1. Open Settings → Connected Services
  2. Tap Add a service
  3. Pick a known service (GitHub, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Slack, Linear, Mercury…) or paste any MCP server's URL
  4. If the service uses OAuth, you're taken to its sign-in page — approve the access it asks for
  5. The service is tested on connect, so you get a truthful status (connected, plus how many tools it exposes) rather than a hopeful guess

#Using a Connected Service in Chat

Once connected, that service's tools become available to the assistant automatically. Just ask:

  • "Any unread email from the landlord?" (Gmail)
  • "What's on my calendar Thursday afternoon?" (Calendar)
  • "Show me the open issues assigned to me in GitHub."
  • "Match my Mercury transactions to the receipts in my library." (a fused answer — your receipts and the connected service together)

You don't call tools by name; the assistant picks the right ones for your question.

#"Do you have my GitHub?" — asking what's connected

The assistant is told, every turn, which services you've connected and roughly what each one can do. So you can just ask — "what services can you reach?" — and get a straight answer rather than a guess.

This also means it shouldn't tell you it can't reach a service you've connected. Earlier versions could: with dozens of tools available, the assistant would sometimes fail to spot the right one and conclude the whole service was missing. It now knows the list up front, and if its first look for a tool comes up empty it tries different wording before drawing any conclusion.

Two things follow from that:

  • It won't stall to ask you for something it can look up. Ask about "my app's repo" and it goes and finds it rather than asking you to name it first.
  • If it says a service isn't connected, believe it. That answer now comes from the actual list, not from a failed search.

If you have connected a service and the assistant still can't see it, check its status under Settings → Connected Services — a connection whose sign-in has expired shows there, and reconnecting fixes it.

#Managing Connections

From Connected Services you can:

  • Edit a connection's details
  • Show / hide the token with the eye toggle when you need to check or copy it
  • Disconnect a service — its tools leave chat immediately and its access is revoked

#Web

The same Connected Services page exists in the web interface at app.ambientchat.ai — add, test, edit, show/hide token, and disconnect, in full parity with the phone. Connect on one, and it's available on both.

#Via Chat

You can manage connections conversationally:

  • "What services do I have connected?"
  • "Connect my GitHub."
  • "Disconnect Slack."

#Via Claude Desktop (MCP)

These tools manage your connections:

  • list_mcp_servers — List the services you've connected, with status and tool counts
  • add_mcp_server — Connect a new MCP server by URL (OAuth handled where supported)
  • update_mcp_server — Edit a connection's settings or token
  • remove_mcp_server — Disconnect a service

See the MCP Tools reference for details.

#Tips & Tricks

  • Connect what you actually use. Each connection adds tools the assistant can reach; a couple of well-chosen services (your email, your calendar) beats a dozen you never query.
  • OAuth means no passwords in the app. For supported services you approve access on the provider's own site; ambientChat stores a revocable token, never your password.
  • The magic is the mix. The point isn't just reaching Gmail — it's asking one question that combines a connected service and your own inventory and documents (e.g. reconciling bank transactions against your receipts).
  • Disconnect cleanly. Removing a service revokes its access and pulls its tools out of chat. If a connection ever looks stale, disconnect and reconnect to refresh it.

#Options

Setting What It Does Default
Connected services The outside tools ambientChat can use in chat None connected
Token visibility Show or hide a connection's stored token Hidden
Auth mode OAuth (recommended, for supported services) or a manual token/URL OAuth where available

#Known Limitations

  • The service must speak MCP. Connected Services works with servers that offer an MCP endpoint. Well-known providers are one-tap; anything else needs its MCP server URL.
  • Availability may depend on your plan. The number of connections (and access to advanced fused tools) can vary by subscription tier — see Subscriptions & Usage.
  • Writes ask first. Actions that change something in a connected service (not just read it) go through a confirmation step, and untrusted content coming back from a third-party service is kept away from the assistant's instructions — a deliberate safety boundary. The prompt tells you exactly what will happen (e.g. Linear: Save issue — "Fix beacon drift"), and if you're away from the app an iOS notification with Approve / Deny buttons reaches your lock screen — you have about two minutes before the request expires. Tired of approving the same tool? Tap Always Allow on the prompt, or manage every tool's policy (Auto / Ask / Blocked) under Settings → MCP Servers → Tool Permissions. Safety-critical actions (emptying trash, deleting your account) always ask.
  • A connection is only as available as the service. If the outside provider is down or you revoke access on their side, its tools won't respond until the connection is restored.

#Version History

Version Date What Changed
3 2026-08-07 The assistant is now told which services you have connected, so it can answer "what can you reach?" accurately, retries a failed tool lookup with different wording instead of concluding a service is missing, and looks things up rather than asking you for details it can find
2 2026-07-18 Approval prompts now name the exact action, arrive as lock-screen Approve/Deny notifications, support "Always Allow", and are manageable per tool under Settings → MCP Servers → Tool Permissions
1 2026-07-05 Initial guide — connect third-party MCP servers (GitHub, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Slack, Linear, Mercury, or any by URL) with OAuth; use their tools in chat; manage/disconnect (v0.13.2)