Apps

Apps are the services your teammates work in: Gmail, GitHub, Stripe, Notion and more. You connect an account once, then choose which teammates get it, read-only or read-write. An account’s key stays encrypted in Brigade and never reaches a computer. Every call goes through Brigade, which checks the teammate’s access, asks a person first when its policy says so, and logs the call.

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Connect an App

1. Open Settings → Apps, or Connect apps in the sidebar.
2. Pick an App and choose Add. Its sign-in opens in a new tab: sign in there and come back.
3. Choose who it is for. A personal App (Gmail, Notion, Linear…) starts as Only in my threads: teammates use it only in threads you start. Switch it to In every thread to share it with the workspace.
4. Give it to teammates: in the account’s Teammates panel, or on a teammate’s Access tab, pick No access, Read only or Read and write for each.

You can add several accounts of the same App, for example two Gmail inboxes, and give each to different teammates. In the App’s Tools section, an owner or admin can turn individual tools off.

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Built-in Apps

Most Apps connect through the vendor’s own sign-in and its official MCP server. A few things to know:

• Stripe: one connection reaches one Stripe account in one mode, live or sandbox. Connect a sandbox to try things out.
• RevenueCat: sign in with RevenueCat, or paste a secret API v2 key made in a project’s settings, which reaches that one project with the permissions you gave it.
• Replicate, OpenRouter, DataForSEO: running a model or a request spends your balance with that vendor, so it counts as a write. OpenRouter’s key lasts 7 days, with a spending cap you set.

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Read, write and approvals

Each call is a read or a write. A teammate with Read only access doesn’t see the write tools, and its write calls are refused. For writes, each teammate has a policy, Acts without approval (sending, editing, deleting), on its Access tab:

• Allow (the default): it writes on its own.
• Ask a person first: each write waits in the thread, and under Needs you, until someone chooses Allow or Deny.
• Never: it can’t write, even with read-write access.

This policy covers calls to Apps. On its own computer, a teammate runs commands, edits files and uses its browser without asking, the way Claude Code or Codex does with its permissions set to run freely. Keep what it must not touch off that computer, and give it Apps for actions that should wait for you. The member who started the thread, or an owner or admin, decides. Every call, allowed or not, is in the account’s Call log, with a link to its thread. On the teammate’s Limits tab, Write calls per connection caps the writes it makes each day: past it, the next write waits for an approval.

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GitHub

Connecting GitHub installs Brigade’s GitHub App on your account or organization, on the repositories you pick. If you aren’t an owner of the organization, GitHub sends the request to its owners.

• Teammates push only to their own branches, named brigade/…, and propose changes to your other branches with a pull request. With Read only, they can clone but not push.
• Work a teammate hasn’t pushed yet is backed up to brigade/wip/… when the thread goes quiet.
• They merge a pull request only when someone asks them to.

More in Code, pull requests and previews.

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Any MCP server

Choose MCP server in the catalog and paste its address (https://…). Brigade checks how it signs in:

• with the provider’s own sign-in (OAuth),
• with an OAuth client you register (client ID and secret),
• with an API key, sent as a bearer token or in a header you name,
• or with no sign-in.

The server must be on a public HTTPS address. Unless a tool says it only reads, Brigade counts it as a write.

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Custom apps and webhooks

To start work when something happens in a service Brigade doesn’t integrate, add a Custom app. Each webhook gets its own address; every event posted to it starts a thread with the teammate and instructions you choose. To check that events come from your sender, have Brigade generate a signing secret: the sender signs the body with HMAC-SHA256 in an X-Brigade-Signature: sha256=<hex> header. Custom apps only receive events: teammates can’t call them back through Brigade. More in Triggers.

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Triggers and routines

• A trigger starts a thread when something happens in an App (a failed payment, a new issue, an email) or a webhook arrives. See Triggers.
• A routine starts a thread on a schedule. See Routines.

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The Email App

Turn on Email and each teammate gets an address of its own. Replies come back to the teammate that started the conversation, not to your inbox. See Email.

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When a teammate lacks access

A teammate that needs an App, a repository or a secret it can’t reach doesn’t stop to explain. It opens a ticket under Needs you saying what it needs, and you give the access, connect the account or save the secret right in the ticket (see Needs you and tickets). When an account’s sign-in expires, it shows Reconnect and the teammate asks its owner to reconnect it. A teammate also knows which Apps it could use. Ask it for something none of its accounts does (“track my Google rankings”, “check my Gmail”) and it looks at the list: the accounts it has, the workspace’s accounts it hasn’t been given, and the Apps nobody has connected for it yet. Then it suggests the one that fits, in a ticket where you give it that account or connect the App. It sees their names only, not their tools, and only the accounts shared with the workspace and those of the person it works for: never another member’s own account, and no one’s own account in a thread several people write in.

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Secrets

For websites and services that aren’t Apps, keep logins, API keys and database URLs in Settings → Secrets.

• Website logins: when a teammate signs in to the site in its browser, Brigade types the username and password, only on that site’s own domain. The teammate never sees the password, and it never ends up in a thread. This works on cloud computers, where teammates have a browser of their own; not yet on your own computer.
• API keys, databases, other secrets: given to the teammate’s commands in a private file, removed when the thread goes idle. The teammate can read them, so a command that prints one puts it in the thread. See Security and your data.

Share a secret with all teammates, or give it per teammate: Can use, asks first (someone mentions it in the thread, or approves) or Without asking. Each use is recorded.