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Posted by gonzalovargas 1 day ago

Google Workspace CLI(github.com)
897 points | 279 commentspage 4
swaminarayan 19 hours ago|
This reminds me a bit of how the GitHub CLI evolved into a foundation for automation and tooling. Do you see the Google Workspace CLI primarily as something for humans using the terminal, or more as a stable interface that automation and AI agents can build on?
plastic041 18 hours ago||
It's built for agents first, unfortunately.

https://justin.poehnelt.com/posts/rewrite-your-cli-for-ai-ag...

dakolli 19 hours ago||
I'm just not going to give agents access to my workspace account!
mhogers 18 hours ago|||
but may they have their own workspace account while working with you? :)
swaminarayan 19 hours ago|||
I agree
_wizard 20 hours ago||
Neat. I've been running something very similar to this locally for a few months now. They introduced all their documentation into markdown recently. I still rely on discover API and lenient cloud project permissions, so maybe some gains there. Will compare note later.
mace01 23 hours ago||
Seems weird to require another tool (gcloud) to set it up, but it does look to be tightly integrated with google cloud.
justinwp 19 hours ago|
You can skip that setup if you already have the OAuth credentials.
cyrusradfar 22 hours ago||
Correct me if I'm wrong but the UX difficulty with the Google API ecosystem isn't resolved. It's the goddamn permissioning and service accounts. Great to have a CLI that every other minute says, "you can't do this" -- the CLI really needed to solve this to check my boxes.
skybrian 1 day ago||
Having the available commands change on you dynamically seems like an anti-pattern, but I suppose an AI can deal with it.
umairnadeem123 23 hours ago|
[dead]
climike 14 hours ago||
Building www.cliwatch.com, so you can keep an eye on how agent-friendly your CLI is ;) feel free to request a benchmark against your CLI docs. Cheers
conor__m 9 hours ago||
Totally thought this was built by Google. Great product!
wonderfuly 23 hours ago||
Why cli instead of just HTTP API doc? The agent can use curl or write code to send requests.
mindwok 22 hours ago||
They already have a HTTP API, but the real reason is that CLIs are emerging as the most ergonomic way for the current wave of AI agents to do stuff. There's a few benefits over APIs:

- No need to worry about transport layer stuff at all, including auth or headers. This is baked in, so saves context.

- They are self describing with --help and then nested --help commands, way better than trying to decipher an OpenAPI spec. You usually don't even need an agent skill, just call the --help and the LLM figures it out.

hedora 23 hours ago|||
CLI is probably more reliable. Also, the ergonomics for the person setting up the machine for the AI are better. They can check to see if the command is working without screwing with curl. It's also possible a human might want to use the software / service they're paying for.
wonderfuly 22 hours ago||
Why is it more reliable? The human usage point is fair, but I doubt how long it is still necesary.
theshrike79 16 hours ago||
Imagine the amount of boilerplate you need around a single HTTP API call, every time.

The CLI has abstracted that into one single reusable, scriptable command

boberoni 23 hours ago|||
A CLI runs on the client, so they can embed client-side functionality like telemetry or caching.
jitl 22 hours ago||
if nothing else the cli gives very easy access to the HTTP api docs via `gws schema`

i’d rather not waste the context tokens re implementing their cli from scratch, if indeed it does a good job.

mmaunder 23 hours ago||
Forget the Gemini extension - Gemini CLI sucks. Forget the MCP - MCP is beyond dead. But for codex or claude cli this is a game changer. Next question is how programmatic have they made the sheets interface... because Gemini sucks at sheets.
cypherpunks01 8 hours ago|
Me: huh, 0.4.4 version, this project must have been around for a little while.

checks https://github.com/googleworkspace/cli/tags

v0.1.1 2 days ago

v0.2.2 yesterday

v0.3.3 18 hours ago

v0.4.2 9 hours ago

v0.5.0 8 minutes ago

Interesting times we live in..

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