**Attachments** are the pieces of content that users view and interact with.
This guide provides a brief overview of attachments in Google Classroom and
defines some important attachment-related terminology.

At a very high level, *an add-on's role is to create and manage attachments* .
Add-ons provide an opportunity for students to access your content directly
within Google Classroom. Unlike assignments created using the [CourseWork
API](https://developers.google.com/workspace/classroom/reference/rest/v1/courses.courseWork), add-on attachments support your customized and interactive experiences
without requiring the user to leave Google Classroom.

Teachers add attachments to **assignments**. An assignment can have up to ten
attachments, though only eight of any single type. Examples of attachments
include YouTube videos, Google Docs, or external links. You can also attach
files from Google Drive or uploaded from your computer.

![View of the assignment creation dialog with attachment cards](https://developers.google.com/static/workspace/classroom/add-ons/images/assignment-creation-attachment-mock.png)

**Figure 1.** Attachments appear as cards when creating, viewing, or completing
an assignment.

## Attachment types

There are two types of add-on attachments: **activity** and **content**.
Activity-type attachments are any that require a student submission or turn-in
action, such as a quiz or written response. Content-type attachments are
view-only materials that don't require a student submission, such as videos or
news articles.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Consider automatically saving progress as students work through activities. Doing so may prevent user frustration; a student may be unable to complete an activity in a single session or they might navigate away from the activity before completing their work.

Attachment-related API interactions differ slightly depending on the attachment
type. For details regarding interactions with attachments through the add-ons
API, visit the [Interacting with attachments](https://developers.google.com/workspace/classroom/add-ons/developer-guides/attachment-interactions) guide page.

## Automatically graded attachments

You can **pass grades back to Google Classroom** for activity-type
attachments. Doing so populates the grade field for a particular assignment with
a draft grade. The grade can be any decimal number zero or greater. See our
[Interacting with attachments](https://developers.google.com/workspace/classroom/add-ons/developer-guides/attachment-interactions) guide page for implementation details.

Note that *this is a heavily requested feature by teachers*; our user experience
research has shown that many teachers assume that add-on activity grades are
automatically be returned to Google Classroom.

## Create attachments from a third-party site

You can create add-on attachments programmatically from outside of
Google Classroom. The interactions are similar to [creating assignments using
the CourseWork API endpoints](https://developers.google.com/workspace/classroom/guides/manage-coursework#create_assignments). See the dedicated [Create attachments outside of
Google Classroom](https://developers.google.com/workspace/classroom/add-ons/developer-guides/third-party-first-journey) guide for implementation details.