Read before write

You'll finish with: A fortnight of safe read-only access first.

Connect the reading side. Use it for a fortnight. Then decide about writing.

Why the wait is worth it

You'll learn what it's genuinely good at and where it misreads your data — while the worst case is a wrong answer on your screen, not a wrong invoice in a client's inbox.

A fortnight of read-only

Week 1You ask it things you'd normally look up
Week 2You spot where it misreads your data
ThenYou know exactly what to trust it with
Only thenTurn on writing, one gate at a time

You don't have to hope it offers read-only

Each connector's tools are grouped by what they do — read-only tools in one group, write and delete tools in another — and you set each group yourself. The three choices are Always allow, Needs approval, and Blocked.

So "read-only for a fortnight" isn't a hope, it's a setting. Block the write group, use it for two weeks, then come back and move one category to Needs approval — not straight to Always allow.

Plain English

Claude also inherits whatever you can do in the tool itself. If your own login can't see a folder or edit a record, the connector can't either. Restricting things in Claude only ever narrows that further — it can never grant more access than your account already has.

Worth asking in week one

"Which invoices are more than 30 days overdue?"
"Who haven't I spoken to in two months?"
"What did we bill this client last year?"
"What's on next week that I should prepare for?"

Do this now

Connect one tool — the one you check most often.
When it asks for permissions, read them rather than clicking through.
Then go to Customize → Connectors, open the one you just added, and look at Tool permissions. Set every write or delete category to Blocked for now.
Ask the four questions above and check the answers against the real system.
Write down anything it got wrong. That's your list of what not to automate.

How to know it worked

You ask something you'd normally open the app for, and the answer matches what the app says.

If numbers are off, don't fix it with a better prompt — find out why first. Wrong data with write access is how bad invoices get sent.

All courses · Start here · Privacy