How does SF Tether actually get a token into my agent's hands — what happens under the hood?

Your agent calls a single endpoint — POST /api/broker/token — with the end user's reference and the provider you need. Tether resolves the stored connection, checks it's active, verifies the requested scopes are within what the user consented to, auto-refreshes the credential if it's expiring within 30 seconds, and returns a short-lived provider access token bound to that agent session. On a warm connection with a fresh token, this resolves at under 50ms (p50). The full audit trail — scopes requested, scopes issued, latency, outcome — is written on every call.

What stops a compromised agent from over-reaching — grabbing scopes the user never approved?

Scope policy is enforced twice: at the moment a connection is created and on every single token issuance, even if you tightened the policy after the connection was made. If an agent asks for scopes the connection doesn't hold, Tether doesn't silently drop them — it creates a scope upgrade request, notifies the end user via email with a re-auth link, and returns a requires_consent response with a consentUrl so the agent can handle it gracefully. Org-level provider allowlists and per-connection rate limits (backed by Vercel KV) add additional layers; a runaway agent loop that exceeds the rate cap gets a 429 with a Retry-After header, not silent failure.

Are the stored OAuth tokens actually encrypted, and who can see them?

Tokens are encrypted at the Drizzle column-type layer using AES-256-GCM before they ever reach Postgres. Every ciphertext is context-bound to the specific table and row it belongs to, so a leaked ciphertext for one row cannot be replayed against another. A raw SELECT in the database returns ciphertext, not plaintext — decryption only happens through the application's typed schema layer. Admin credential reveals in the dashboard are gated to admin roles and log an admin.credential_revealed audit event every time. A rotateAllCredentials operation is available for key rotation drills.

What does the audit trail look like — will it satisfy a SOC 2 auditor?

Every connection lifecycle event (created, authorized, refreshed, revoked, error, scope change) is written to an append-only tether_connection_events table with a 7-year retention policy. Every broker token issuance — including scopes requested, scopes issued, latency, and outcome — is written to tether_broker_issuance_log, retained 90 days hot. Both tables are enforced append-only at the database permission layer: UPDATE and DELETE are revoked from the application role. The dashboard's log explorer lets you filter by event type, connection, end user, provider, IP, time range, and agent session, then export the filtered slice as CSV or JSON. An org-level data export compiles the full dataset — connections, end users, scope grants, and the complete audit logs — into a signed, zipped bundle for SOC 2 reviews or GDPR data-portability requests.

How do I connect a new provider — do I need to build the OAuth flow myself?

No. Tether ships with a catalog of 25+ pre-configured providers including Google, Microsoft 365, Slack, GitHub, Notion, Linear, Salesforce, HubSpot, Jira, Zendesk, and others — each pre-loaded with OAuth 2.0 endpoints, scope catalogs, and PKCE handling. A guided setup wizard walks you through registering your OAuth app with each provider: it shows you exactly which callback URL to paste into the provider's developer portal, then stores your client credentials encrypted. For your end users, a drop-in React component — TetherConnectButton — opens the OAuth flow in a popup and fires onSuccess/onError callbacks. The consent screen shown to end users displays your app's branding, the provider's logo, and plain-English descriptions of every scope being requested, color-coded by risk level.

What happens when a token expires or a user revokes access — does my agent just break silently?

No. A background job runs every 5 minutes, finds credentials expiring within the next 15 minutes, and refreshes them proactively — so agents almost never hit an expired token. When a refresh fails permanently (the user revoked access at the provider), the connection transitions to expired, a banner appears in your dashboard with a fix-now CTA, an email goes to the end user with a magic re-auth link, and your server receives a connection.expired webhook. The re-auth link drops the user directly into the OAuth flow without requiring them to log into your app first. You can also revoke any connection programmatically via API — including a bulk panic-revoke that zeros all credentials for an org, available as both a dashboard action and a REST endpoint.

Integrations — SF Tether

[ PROVIDER CATALOG / 25+ APIs ]

Your agents reach the entire internet. Authenticated.

SF Tether handles OAuth flows, token vaulting, scope enforcement, and automatic refresh for every provider in the catalog — so your agents get a valid, least-privilege token in one SDK call, with a full audit trail behind every issuance.

Browse the catalog

Read the quickstart

googletoken issued — calendar.readonly scope0.0s

slackconnection authorized — channels:read granted0.1s

githubaccess token refreshed — single-flight lock released0.2s

notionscope upgrade requested — waiting consent0.4s

salesforcebroker issuance — instance_url resolved0.5s

hubspotconnection.authorized webhook delivered0.6s

lineartoken issued — issues:write scope0.8s

Every connection, visible in one place

25+ providers. Pre-wired. No dev portal.

Google Workspace

Microsoft 365

Slack

GitHub

Notion

Linear

Salesforce

HubSpot

Jira & Asana

From SDK call to live token in one round-trip

Register your providers

End-users authorize once

Agents call one endpoint

Every issuance is logged

One user. Many providers. One revoke.

Agents ask only for what they're allowed to have

Provider allowlist

Scope-level rules

Rate limits per connection

Five lines of code. A valid token. Every time.

Audit-ready by default, not by configuration

Tokens never land in your database as plaintext

AES-256-GCM at the column level

PKCE-correct for every flow

Single-flight refresh

Credential reveal is audited

The infrastructure layer your agents were missing

Common questions about integrations

Your agents are ready. Give them the keys.