What connectors are and how they work in Cowork

Connectors are the bridge between Claude and the external systems your business runs on. They're integrations that hook into APIs — your CRM, email provider, cloud storage, project management tools, AWS services, and anything else with a programmatic interface. Anthropic maintains a reviewed catalog of connectors, and custom connectors can be built for proprietary or niche systems.

More than just integrations

But connectors aren't just plumbing. They're where hard business rules get enforced. When Claude accesses your CRM through a connector, the connector controls what operations are available. If the sales team shouldn't delete orders, the connector doesn't expose a delete operation. If certain data fields are sensitive, the connector filters them out before Claude sees them. This is enforcement at the system level — deterministic, reliable, and independent of what the LLM decides to do.

Understanding connectors is essential for any Cowork deployment. They define the boundaries of what Claude can interact with and how. Getting the connector layer right is the single most impactful decision in a governed deployment.