Most of what makes Dex useful comes from what it can see. /connect is how you let it see your other tools — and it's built so you never have to research how any of them work. You say the name of the app; Dex works out what that particular one needs and walks you through it.
Just say the name
There's no list to browse and nothing to look up. You say "connect my Slack" — or Gmail, or Notion, or the scheduling tool nobody outside your company has heard of — and Dex checks what it knows about that specific app, works out how it expects to be connected, and takes you down that path one question at a time.
There are only ever two paths, and Dex picks for you. But they are not the same amount of work, and you should know which one you're in for before you start.
Paste a key — 350 apps, and it really is that quick
Some apps hand out a long, password-like string from their own settings. Dex tells you exactly where to find it, you paste it into the chat, and you're connected. Saving it is instant — the only real time cost is walking into that app's settings to copy the key, usually a couple of minutes. Nothing to register, nothing to set up first, and no browser screen to click through.
If that app needs an extra detail — your company's own web address for it, say — Dex asks for that before it asks for the key, rather than saving something that quietly doesn't work.
One thing you'll see, and it's not a problem. Right after a key is saved, Dex reports the connection as connected (unverified). Read that as: saved, but not yet tried. Dex has stored your key safely; it simply hasn't contacted the app yet to confirm the key works. It isn't a warning and nothing is broken. If you want certainty before you rely on it, just ask Dex to check the connection and it will — or the first real thing you ask for will prove it either way.
Sign in through your browser — 425 apps, with a one-time setup first
This is the path where you approve Dex on the app's own sign-in screen, exactly the way you'd sign in to anything. Once it's running it is genuinely that easy, and it stays that easy for good.
Getting there the first time takes more. Dex doesn't arrive with a pre-arranged identity at Google, Slack or anyone else — deliberately, because having one would mean your sign-in passing through us. So the first time you connect one of these apps, you register Dex yourself inside that app's own settings, usually on a page called something like "developer settings" or "API access". That page gives you two values. You paste them into the chat and Dex saves them for you — you never open or edit a file.
Being straight about it: this is the most technical thing Dex will ever ask of you. It's a form on someone else's website with a few fields to fill in. Dex talks you through it step by step and stops if you get lost. Give your first one a proper sitting rather than squeezing it between meetings — but it's once per app, ever, not once per use, and the ones after it go faster.
Check this first, though. If you're running Dex inside Claude and your company has already approved a tool there — Calendar, Gmail, Drive — Dex can usually just use it, with nothing to connect and no setup at all. Dex looks for that before sending you anywhere.
The totals
775 apps are connectable today, from a list of 831 that Dex maintains — a record of how each app expects to be connected, kept current so you don't have to research it. The other 56 use sign-in methods Dex hasn't built yet. Ask for one of those and Dex says so plainly rather than sending you in circles.
So: any of the 775, but not all at the same speed. If you want a quick first win, ask Dex which of the tools you use fall on the paste-a-key side.
Where your sign-ins live — the honest version
This is the part worth reading slowly, because it's the part most software glosses over.
When you connect an app, the resulting sign-in is encrypted and saved on your own computer. It is never sent to us. Dex has no server holding your logins, because Dex has no server. On a Mac, the key that unlocks those sign-ins is held in the macOS Keychain — the same vault your Mac uses for its own passwords.
And here's what that does not cover. Today's Dex runs in a terminal window on your machine. A program running in a terminal cannot stop other software that is already running under your own account from reading the files you can read. So if something is already running as you on that computer, it could reach these sign-ins.
This is not a Dex weakness — it is the ordinary trade-off for any tool that keeps logins on your computer. Your Amazon Web Services file works this way. Your GitHub sign-in works this way. Dex is telling you about it; that's the difference.
What it means in practice: the thing you're trusting is the computer itself. Keep it up to date, keep it yours, and be as careful about what you install on it as you would be about who has a key to your office.
What's coming: the Dex desktop app will close this gap — it will add a fingerprint check, so unlocking a sign-in requires you, physically, at the machine. That doesn't exist on the command line today, and we'd rather say so than let you assume a protection you don't have.
Staying connected without thinking about it
Browser sign-ins don't last forever — most apps hand out access that quietly lapses after a while. Dex renews yours about five minutes before it would lapse. You never see it happen and nothing you asked for gets interrupted. Pasted keys are simpler: they don't expire, so there's nothing to renew.
Then, the first time you sit down with Dex each day, it quietly looks over your connections:
- Anything it can repair on its own, it repairs — silently, before you notice.
- It speaks up only about connections that genuinely need you: someone removed Dex's access inside that app, a password changed, an account was closed.
- It never nags you about apps you chose not to connect.
The effect is that connections mostly stop being something you manage. You'll hear about one perhaps twice a year, and when you do it's real.
When it doesn't work — the two common ones
Nothing here means you've broken anything. Both of these are ordinary and both are quick to undo.
The key you pasted isn't accepted. Ask Dex to check a connection and you may get back the words needs_reauth. It looks alarming and it isn't. Translated: this sign-in needs doing again — and after a fresh paste, the overwhelmingly likely reason is simply that the key didn't work. A character dropped on the way over, the key was copied from the wrong place, or it had already been cancelled at the other end.
The fix is the same short trip you just made: go back into that app's settings, get a new key, and paste it again. Nothing on your machine is damaged and nothing needs repairing — you're replacing a string of characters that didn't do its job.
Your browser sign-in setup values were mistyped. When you register Dex with an app, Dex saves the two values you paste without checking them — it has no way to test them until you actually try to sign in. So a typo doesn't announce itself. It shows up a step later, when the browser opens and the app's own sign-in screen shows an error.
That's the tell: an error page from the app rather than a message from Dex almost always means one of those two values is wrong. You haven't broken Dex, and Dex hasn't broken. Ask Dex to set those values up again, paste them carefully, and try once more.
Disconnecting — and the second step people forget
Ask Dex to disconnect an app and it deletes that sign-in from your computer. Gone.
But that alone doesn't revoke Dex's access at the other end. The app still has a standing permission on file. To close the door properly you also need to remove Dex inside that app's own settings — usually a page called something like "connected apps" or "authorized apps". Dex reminds you of this when you disconnect, and will tell you where to look.
Two steps, not one. Worth knowing before you assume an app has been cut off.
Dex asks before connecting anything it hasn't reviewed
A small number of apps — Google, Slack and Linear today — have been reviewed by Dex's own team. Everything else in the list comes from a maintained public record that Dex reads but did not write.
So for any app outside that reviewed set, the connection is refused by default. It cannot go through by accident, or because something misread what you asked for. Getting past that point takes a deliberate, explicit go-ahead — which is why Dex stops, tells you plainly that this particular app hasn't been reviewed, and waits for your yes before it does anything. Say no and nothing happens.
Worth being precise about who's doing what: the refusal is built into the machinery, and Dex is the one that turns it into a plain question and puts it to you. You're not meant to be dealing with the underlying refusal yourself — that's Dex's job, and it's why you should let Dex drive these connections rather than going around it.
Don't guess what to connect — ask
The connections worth having depend entirely on your job. Rather than working down a list, put the question to Dex:
Look at what you already know about my role, my week, and what I keep asking you for. Then tell me the three apps I should connect first and what each one would let you do that you can't do today. Rank by how much it would actually change my week, tell me which are a quick paste-a-key and which need the one-time setup in that app's own settings, and say if one of them isn't worth it for someone in my position.
One at a time. Connect the top one, live with it for a few days, then come back and ask again — the answer changes once Dex can see more.
For the connections Dex has purpose-built flows for — calendar, meeting notes, email, your task app — start with Connecting your tools. /connect is the door for everything else.
Don't just read this — paste it into your own Dex and it becomes a lesson about your actual work.
First, fetch and read the page I'm referring to: https://heydex.ai/help/connect.md I just read the Dex Guide's page on /connect. Show me where I actually stand: which apps are connected right now, which ones are broken or need me to do something, and which of the apps I use every day aren't connected at all. Then recommend the single most valuable one to connect today and, if I say yes, walk me through it. Before we start anything, tell me in plain language what saving that sign-in on this machine does and doesn't protect me from.