Google Workspace CLI

gws is a Google Workspace command-line tool built for humans and AI agents: structured JSON output, dry-run previews, auto-pagination, dynamic command generation from Google's Discovery Service, and bundled agent skills. It is explicitly not an officially supported Google product. Source: googleworkspace/cli README, https://github.com/googleworkspace/cli, accessed 2026-06-25

What It Gives Agents

gws reads Google's Discovery Service at runtime and builds its command surface dynamically, so the CLI can pick up newly exposed Workspace API methods without a manually maintained command list. Responses are structured JSON, which makes it a better default for agents than scraping Google Workspace web UIs. Source: googleworkspace/cli README, accessed 2026-06-25

Core agent affordances:

• --dry-run to preview requests before mutations.
• --page-all for streaming paginated results as NDJSON.
• gws schema <service.method> to inspect request and response schemas.
• OAuth flows for local desktop, pre-obtained access tokens, and credentials files.
• Agent skills for Workspace tasks. Kevin already has the gws-* skills installed and routed. Source: googleworkspace/cli README; Active Stack (What to Actually Use), 2026-06-24

GitHub reports 28,352 stars, Rust implementation, Apache-2.0 license, and topics across Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Sheets, Docs, Admin, OAuth2, Google APIs, and agent skills. Source: GitHub API for googleworkspace/cli, accessed 2026-06-25

Install

Preferred install is a prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases. Other supported paths:

npm install -g @googleworkspace/cli
brew install googleworkspace-cli
cargo install --git https://github.com/googleworkspace/cli --locked
nix run github:googleworkspace/cli

Routing Summary

Use the installed gws-* skills first. They are the procedural layer for Drive, Calendar, Gmail, Sheets, Docs, Slides, Tasks, write/append/triage helpers, and shared auth. Use raw gws commands only when the skill needs a lower-level Workspace method that has no wrapper yet. Source: User request, 2026-06-25; Skill Resolver

Safety rules:

• Read/list first.
• Use --dry-run before writes where supported.
• Ask before sending email, writing docs/sheets/slides/tasks, uploading files, or creating calendar events.
• Confirm the target Google account, project, and scopes before any mutation.

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Timeline

• 2026-06-25 | Page created after Kevin explicitly asked to use googleworkspace/cli as an awesome tool. Existing gws-* skills were already installed and active; this page adds the upstream CLI source of truth. Source: User request, 2026-06-25; googleworkspace/cli README