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: