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How it works
The key on your computer, which account Claude works on, what it asks before doing, what your plan and privacy settings decide, and how it keeps itself up to date.
The key on your computer
Connecting makes a key for your account on your own computer, at ~/.awesomate/credentials.json, readable only by you. The code you pasted is the only secret that ever passes through your clipboard, and it works for ten minutes; the key itself is created on your machine. Keys last 90 days.
You can see every computer that's connected, and remove one, in the hub under Settings, Integrations, Every key. A removed key stops working within a minute.
Which account Claude works on
Every answer from an Awesomate tool says which account it acted on, so working on the wrong one is hard to miss. awesomate_whoami says which account is connected and why. If you look after more than one account (your own and a client's, say), each is a profile in the same key file, and you choose one per folder or per session: see Working with more than one account.
What Claude asks before doing
- Reading (how things are, what failed, what's in your Knowledge) happens straight away.
- Changes (a draft post, a new automation, a new record) happen when you ask for them. For your live website, Claude makes a staging copy first when it can, so you see the change before your visitors do.
- Anything that deletes or replaces something live (deleting a WordPress site, replacing a live site with its staging copy, rolling back to a backup) is confirmed with you in so many words first. A rollback backs up the current state first, so even that can be undone.
- Anything that spends money (a credit for a session or a build) shows you the cost and your balance, and waits for your yes.
Each tool is marked in the reference as reading only, making changes, or able to delete or overwrite. Claude Code uses the same marks to decide when to ask you for permission.
What decides what Claude can do
Claude can only do what your account can. The hub checks every request against your plan, the features switched on for your account, and your privacy settings, whatever Claude asks for:
- Your plan. Looking is on every plan; building is Support Plus and above; some things, such as apps your customers sign in to, are Pro and above. Claude reads your plan first and says plainly when something needs a different one.
- Your privacy settings. In Settings, Privacy you decide, for example, whether Claude Code may build and test automations in your account. Claude can read these settings but never change them: you switch them in the hub.
- Payments. Claude never takes a payment or a card number. Upgrades and purchases happen in the hub.
Secrets
When an automation needs a password or an API key, Claude doesn't ask you to paste it into the chat. It gives you a one-time secure form, and the secret goes straight to where it's needed. The awesomate-credentials skill teaches Claude this.
Skills
Connecting also installs skills: written instructions Claude reads when a task matches, such as how to make a WordPress change safely or how to build and test an automation. They're listed in the Skills reference.
Updates
The Awesomate tools update themselves: each time Claude Code starts, it runs the newest version. The skills on your computer update when you say yes. When they fall behind, Claude notices, tells you what's new (from the changelog) and runs awesomate_skill_update, then tells you to restart.
Sister docs
The SDK docs cover building your own apps on the same account and data. How access works there explains the rules that decide which records each person in your app can see; Claude sets those rules up with the contacts tools.