# Using plugins with the AWS assistant
<a name="plugins"></a>

The AWS assistant integrates with third party monitoring tools and security platforms so you can access your AWS application insights without leaving the AWS builder environment. In the AWS Management Console, you can chat about metrics provided by these tools to understand and address application performance, errors, or vulnerabilities. 

After you configure a plugin, add the plugin alias to the beginning of your question when you chat with the AWS assistant in the AWS Management Console. The AWS assistant calls the third party provider APIs to retrieve resources and generates a response with deep links to the external resources. 

When the AWS assistant calls a third party API, the API will not appear in AWS CloudTrail logs. The CloudTrail log will only show when an AWS Secrets Manager secret is accessed by the AWS assistant to retrieve credentials to connect to the third party provider. 

The AWS assistant doesn't share any information with third party providers when you configure or use plugins. For more information on how the AWS assistant uses your data, see [Data protection in the AWS assistant](data-protection.md). 

**Note**  
Member accounts within an AWS organization don't have access to plugins that are configured in the organization's management account profile. Each member account must create their own Q Developer profile before they can configure and use plugins in their account. 

**Warning**  
Third party provider user permissions are not detected by AWS assistant plugins. When an administrator configures a plugin in an AWS account, users with plugin permissions in that account have access to any resources in the third party provider account retrievable by the plugin.   
You can configure IAM policies to restrict which plugins users have access to. For more information, see [Allow users to chat with plugins from one provider](security-iam-examples.md#iam-example-plugin-type).

To get started, see the topic for the plugin you want to use with the AWS assistant.

**Topics**
+ [Configuring the AWS assistant CloudZero plugin](cloudzero-plugin.md)
+ [Configuring the AWS assistant Datadog plugin](datadog-plugin.md)
+ [Configuring the AWS assistant Wiz plugin](wiz-plugin.md)