Google Workspace CLI — Quick Install

Install gws on an additional machine using OAuth credentials from a previous setup. Produces an authenticated CLI with all agent skills ready to use.

Prerequisite: The user must have client_secret.json from a previous gws-setup (or from Google Cloud Console). If they don't have it, use the gws-setup skill instead.

Workflow

Step 1: Pre-flight Checks

which gws && gws --version
ls ~/.config/gws/client_secret.json
gws auth status

If already authenticated with the right scopes, skip to Step 4.

Step 2: Install the CLI

npm install -g @googleworkspace/cli
gws --version

Step 3: Set Up Credentials

Ask the user to provide their client_secret.json. Three options:

Option A — Paste the JSON content:

Ask the user to paste the JSON. Write it to ~/.config/gws/client_secret.json:

mkdir -p ~/.config/gws

Expected format:

{
  "installed": {
    "client_id": "...",
    "project_id": "...",
    "auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
    "token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
    "client_secret": "...",
    "redirect_uris": ["http://localhost"]
  }
}

Option B — File path:

If the user has the file locally (e.g. in Downloads):

mkdir -p ~/.config/gws
cp /path/to/client_secret.json ~/.config/gws/client_secret.json

Option C — Environment variables:

export GOOGLE_WORKSPACE_CLI_CLIENT_ID="your-client-id"
export GOOGLE_WORKSPACE_CLI_CLIENT_SECRET="your-client-secret"

Step 4: Authenticate

IMPORTANT: This step prints a very long OAuth URL (30+ scopes) that the user must open in their browser. The URL is too long to copy from terminal output — it wraps across lines and breaks. Always extract it to a file and open it programmatically.

Ask which Google account to use, then:

1. Run auth in the background and capture output:

gws auth login -s gmail,drive,calendar,sheets,docs,chat,tasks 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gws-auth-output.txt

Running as a background task is fine — it will complete once the user approves in browser.

2. Extract and open the URL (run separately after output appears):

grep -o 'https://accounts.google.com[^ ]*' /tmp/gws-auth-output.txt > /tmp/gws-auth-url.txt
cat /tmp/gws-auth-url.txt | xargs open

If open doesn't work, tell the user: "The auth URL is saved at /tmp/gws-auth-url.txt — open that file and copy the URL from there."

3. Wait for the user to approve in their browser, then verify:

gws auth status

Alternative — --full for all scopes:

gws auth login --full

The user can check their original machine's scopes with gws auth status to see what was granted.

Step 5: Install Agent Skills

npx skills add googleworkspace/cli -g --agent claude-code --all

This installs 90+ skills into ~/.claude/skills/. Safe to re-run if skills are already installed.

Step 6: Verify

gws auth status
gws calendar +agenda --today
gws gmail +triage

Troubleshooting

"Auth error — credentials missing or invalid" (exit code 2)

• Check ~/.config/gws/client_secret.json exists and has valid JSON
• Re-run gws auth login

Token expired

• If the GCP app is in "Testing" status, tokens expire after 7 days
• Re-run gws auth login to refresh
• For permanent tokens, push the app to Production in GCP Console OAuth consent screen

Skills not appearing in Claude Code

• Skills load at session start — restart Claude Code after installing
• Verify: ls ~/.claude/skills/gws-* | wc -l should show 30+ directories

See Also

• gws-setup — First-time setup including GCP project creation
• gws-shared — Auth patterns and global flags