Content & Documents · Integration
SFTP
Add SFTP to your product for your customers, and give your AI agents governed access to it.
SFTP moves files over an SSH connection, which is what separates it from FTPS: one encrypted channel on one port, authentication by password or private key, and a host key the client is expected to verify before it trusts anything. An embedded SFTP integration lists folders, downloads and uploads files, renames and moves them, reads file information, changes permissions where the account is allowed to, and can watch a directory so a delivered file starts your workflow. Each customer supplies their own host, port, credentials or key and the paths they are willing to expose, so nothing is shared between tenants. fastn holds those keys, reuses connections, pages through large listings and logs every transfer per tenant.
In your product
Embedded for your customers. Per-tenant auth, no per-customer code, maintained by fastn.
Let each customer connect their own SFTP host, authenticating with a private key or a password depending on what that server accepts.
Watch an inbound directory so a file a trading partner drops overnight starts your workflow when it lands.
Upload a generated export to the outbound path a customer's downstream system already collects from.
Rename or move a file once it has been processed, so the same delivery is never picked up twice.
For your AI agents
Governed, audited access for the agents you build, through the MCP server.
An agent searches a directory tree for the file matching a reference before reading anything.
An agent reads a delivered file and answers from its contents rather than from a summary somebody typed.
An agent writes a generated file to the agreed path within governed permissions, with the transfer recorded.
Example prompt
Find the newest settlement file on the customer's SFTP host, read it, and tell me which rows failed validation.
Set up SFTP in 4 steps
- 01Open the SFTP connector from your fastn dashboard.
- 02Have each customer supply their own host and port, a username with a password or private key, and the host key to trust.
- 03Agree which directories your product may read and write, describe the file names and formats you expect, then enable the actions and the new-file trigger.
- 04Call them from your product, or expose the same connection to an agent through the MCP server.
Why teams use the SFTP integration
What you get by embedding it with fastn instead of building it yourself.
- Ship an SFTP integration without building it. Your customers point it at their own endpoint and credentials and work their files, documents and versions through it, with no per-customer code on your side.
- Handle the part that actually costs time: permissions and versioning are easy to get subtly wrong, and mistakes expose content. fastn owns the auth, token refresh, rate limits, pagination and breaking-change fixes, so an SFTP update is not your on-call problem.
- One integration serves your product and your agents. The same governed SFTP connection powers in-product features and gives AI agents scoped, audited access, so you let your product work with your customers' documents in place without wiring it twice.
Used by these teams
Compare with
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AsanaSFTP integration FAQ
How do I add an SFTP integration to my product?
Enable the SFTP connector in your fastn dashboard, then let each customer authenticate their own SFTP account. fastn handles the OAuth flow, token storage and refresh per tenant, so there is no SFTP client code in your app and no per-customer branch in your codebase. Setup is 4 steps.
How is an SFTP connection configured per customer?
SFTP is a specification rather than a service you sign up for, so there is no SFTP account. Each customer supplies their own endpoint and credentials, and that connection is scoped to them, so they only ever reach their own files, documents and versions. The per-tenant isolation works the same way it does for a vendor product.
Can AI agents use this SFTP integration?
Yes. The same connection is exposed to your agents through the fastn MCP gateway, with permissions scoped per tenant and every call audited. An agent searches a directory tree for the file matching a reference before reading anything.
Who maintains the SFTP integration?
fastn does. When SFTP changes an endpoint, deprecates a field or alters its auth, the fix lands in the connector rather than in your backlog, and your customers' connections keep working.
Whose permissions does the SFTP integration run under?
Each customer's own SFTP grant. Where SFTP holds a library, their existing folder and item permissions apply and your product cannot reach content the connected account could not reach itself. Where it processes content you supply rather than storing it, the call runs under that customer's own credentials and is logged per tenant.
Can my product create or update content in SFTP automatically?
Where SFTP supports writes, documents, entries and assets can be created, updated and filed from your product or by an agent within scoped permissions, with each action logged. Where it is a read surface, the same connection serves reads only.
What can I build with the SFTP integration?
A common starting point: let each customer connect their own SFTP host, authenticating with a private key or a password depending on what that server accepts. Teams also use it for the other use cases listed above, and expose it to agents for governed reads and writes.
How much does the SFTP integration cost?
It is included. Pricing is based on connected accounts, not on how many connectors you enable, so adding SFTP does not change your per-connector cost. You can start free with 3 connected accounts.
Add SFTP to your product
Start free with 3 connected accounts. No sales call required, and no per-customer integration code.