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What connections do

Connections let Workflow Machine access the external apps your workflows use. Instead of authenticating separately inside every step, you create a connection once in the Connections page and then select it wherever a workflow needs that app. This keeps workflow setup cleaner and makes integrations easier to reuse.

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Why connections matter

Most useful workflows depend on other systems. For example, a workflow might need to:
  • send a Slack message
  • read from Gmail
  • create a Notion page
  • write to Google Sheets
  • update a Stripe customer
Connections are what make those app actions possible.

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How connections fit into the product

A simple mental model:
  • Workflows define the process
  • Triggers decide when the process starts
  • Steps do the work
  • Connections let those steps access external apps
That separation is important because it means one connection can be reused across several workflows instead of being recreated every time.

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Reusable across workflows

One of the biggest benefits of connections is reuse. You can often use the same connected account in multiple workflows, which helps you:
  • avoid repeated auth setup
  • keep account access consistent
  • update one connection instead of several copies
This is especially helpful once your workspace contains more than a handful of workflows.

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Default connections

Workflow Machine can also treat a connection as the default for its app type. That makes setup faster because workflows can often pick the expected connection more easily, especially when you use the same app account repeatedly. If you work with more than one account for the same app, it is worth being deliberate about which connection should be the default and which workflows should use a different one.

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Common connection types

Depending on the integration, a connection may use:
  • OAuth sign-in
  • API keys or tokens
  • another app-specific authentication flow
From a user perspective, the important thing is not the auth mechanism itself. It is whether the connection gives the workflow the right access to do its job.

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What can go wrong

Even a well-designed workflow can fail if the connection behind a step is not usable. Common issues include:
  • the wrong account was connected
  • the connection is missing required permissions
  • the token expired or became invalid
  • the workflow step is pointing to the wrong saved connection
That is why connections deserve their own section in the docs instead of being treated as a minor setup detail.

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Best way to use this section

If you are new to Workflow Machine, read these pages in order:
  1. Create a connection from the Connections page
  2. Learn how to maintain and rotate connections
  3. Use the troubleshooting guide when a step fails unexpectedly
Once you understand connections well, building app-based workflows becomes much smoother.