Content & Documents · Integration

SMB

Add SMB to your product for your customers, and give your AI agents governed access to it.

SMB, also called CIFS, is the protocol behind Windows file sharing, and it is still where a great deal of business data sits: a mapped drive on a file server inside the customer's own network. An embedded SMB integration lists directory contents, downloads and uploads files, creates folders, deletes resources, reads file metadata, and can watch a folder so a new or changed file starts your workflow. Two things separate it from an HTTP file API. Access is by share and path with the rights of the account you connect as, so what your product can reach is decided by the customer's own permissions rather than by a scope you request. And these shares usually sit behind a firewall, so reachability is part of what a customer configures. fastn stores the credentials per tenant and logs every read and write.

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In your product

Embedded for your customers. Per-tenant auth, no per-customer code, maintained by fastn.

Give each customer a way to nominate their own share and the paths they are willing to expose.

Watch a folder so a file dropped on the share by an internal system starts your workflow.

Read a file straight off the share instead of asking somebody to upload a second copy to you.

Write output back to the share, so the people and systems already reading that path carry on unchanged.

For your AI agents

Governed, audited access for the agents you build, through the MCP server.

An agent lists a folder to locate the file it needs, then reads only that one.

An agent answers from a document on the share, within the paths and permissions you allowed.

An agent writes a generated file to an agreed folder, with the write recorded per tenant.

Example prompt

List what landed in the shared inbound folder today and summarise the newest spreadsheet.

Set up SMB in 4 steps

  1. 01Open the SMB connector from your fastn dashboard.
  2. 02Have each customer supply the host and share, the account to connect as, and confirm the share is reachable from where the connector runs.
  3. 03Agree which paths your product may read and write, then enable the actions and the new-file trigger.
  4. 04Call them from your product, or expose the same connection to an agent through the MCP server.

Why teams use the SMB integration

What you get by embedding it with fastn instead of building it yourself.

  • Ship an SMB 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 SMB update is not your on-call problem.
  • One integration serves your product and your agents. The same governed SMB 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

MarketingHR & People OpsOperations

Compare with

FTP/FTPSSFTPAzure File Storage

Often used alongside

Tools the same teams tend to run next to SMB, across other categories.

ShopifyStripeJiraAsana

SMB integration FAQ

How do I add an SMB integration to my product?

Enable the SMB connector in your fastn dashboard, then let each customer authenticate their own SMB account. fastn handles the OAuth flow, token storage and refresh per tenant, so there is no SMB client code in your app and no per-customer branch in your codebase. Setup is 4 steps.

How is an SMB connection configured per customer?

SMB is a specification rather than a service you sign up for, so there is no SMB 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 SMB 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 lists a folder to locate the file it needs, then reads only that one.

Who maintains the SMB integration?

fastn does. When SMB 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 SMB integration run under?

Each customer's own SMB grant. Where SMB 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 SMB automatically?

Where SMB 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 SMB integration?

A common starting point: give each customer a way to nominate their own share and the paths they are willing to expose. 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 SMB integration cost?

It is included. Pricing is based on connected accounts, not on how many connectors you enable, so adding SMB does not change your per-connector cost. You can start free with 3 connected accounts.

Add SMB to your product

Start free with 3 connected accounts. No sales call required, and no per-customer integration code.

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