# Third-party apps

Connect non-AI software — automation platforms, CRMs and other tools — that operates your Instasent project over OAuth, with permissions you review and approve.

**Language:** en
**Audience:** platform
**Translation key:** platform.developers-and-apps.third-party-apps
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**Related pages:** /platform/es/developers-and-apps/third-party-apps, /platform/en/developers-and-apps, /platform/en/developers-and-apps/connect-your-ai, /platform/en/developers-and-apps/managing-connected-apps, /platform/en/data-sources, /developers/product-api/connected-apps-and-oauth
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**This zone's index:** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/en/llms.txt
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**Other language (es):** https://docs.instasent.com/platform/es/developers-and-apps/third-party-apps.md

Besides AI agents, the same OAuth door connects **third-party apps** that aren't
AI — an automation platform, a CRM, or other software that operates your
Instasent project on your behalf. You authorize each one, review what it can do,
and can disconnect it at any time.

## How a third-party app connects

The connection always starts **from the app's side**, not from inside Instasent.
When the app sends you to Instasent to authorize it, you get an OAuth consent
screen where you sign in, choose the project (or projects), review the
permissions the app is asking for, and approve.

A third-party integration of this kind is an **API integration**: its consent
shows the requested permissions as a list you can trim before approving, and the
permissions it can hold include ones that **write** — create or change things —
not just read. You decide which ones to grant.

{/* IMG-PENDING: OAuth consent screen — API integration */}

## What it's not

- It's **not [bringing data into Instasent](/platform/en/data-sources).** An
  integration that feeds contacts or events into your audience — a Shopify or
  Klaviyo connector, a webhook — is a **data source**, not a connected app. A
  connected app *operates* your project from the outside; a data source moves
  data *into* it.
- It's **not the [AI assistant built into Instasent](/platform/en/ai).** That's
  part of the product itself — you don't connect anything to use it.
- It's **not [your own AI](/platform/en/developers-and-apps/connect-your-ai).** An
  assistant connects through the same OAuth door, but as an MCP client working
  with a curated set of tools, and it approves its permissions as a package. A
  third-party app here is a classic API integration: it reaches the full API,
  and its permissions are a list you can trim.

## Managing and revoking

Every third-party app you connect appears alongside your other connections in
[Connected apps](/platform/en/developers-and-apps/managing-connected-apps),
where you can see its permissions and projects, change which projects it
reaches, and disconnect it. How much of your data it actually receives, whatever
it was granted, is
[Data access](/platform/en/developers-and-apps/third-party-data-access).

## Are you the one building the app?

Everything above is written for the person **installing** an app somebody else
built. If you are on the other side — you are building software that **your own
customers will connect to their Instasent projects** — you want the developer
documentation instead, because what you need is the authorization contract, not
the consent screen.

- [Connected apps (OAuth)](/developers/product-api/connected-apps-and-oauth) - Register your application, run the authorization flow, and receive tokens each customer grants and can revoke. This is the path for software many customers install.
- [API tokens](/platform/en/developers-and-apps/api-tokens) - Only integrating your *own* account, with no other customers involved? Then you don't need any of that — create a token and carry it.

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This is one page of the Instasent documentation. For the complete machine-readable index of every guide and API reference, fetch https://docs.instasent.com/llms.txt — start there for full context.