Google Workspace CLI
Shares rank 10 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders
People recommend it as a scriptable command-line interface to Google Workspace apps like Sheets and Docs, useful for agents. Critics say Google Cloud setup and auth are hard and that the vibe-coded code is a trust risk.
People recommend it as a scriptable command-line interface to Google Workspace apps like Sheets and Docs, useful for agents. Critics say Google Cloud setup and auth are hard and that the vibe-coded code is a trust risk.
62 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 31
- criticize it
- 31
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 31 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful for scripts and AI agents
“now my lobster can stably do everything on my behalf vs. you do it all via computer use”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “The CLI has abstracted that into one single reusable, scriptable command”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “Great, i hope this becomes a trend now that agent skills want clis”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” - Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI”
- Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Just made an app and MCP Server to convert Markdown to Google Docs”
Practical for Sheets, Docs and Workspace
“Work fine as a gog replacement for my limited use cases of reading and writing Sheets.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “made G workspace so much more useful to me personally”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI” “one of the few actually useful tools for Workspace”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI” - Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI”
Better than dashboards or third-party libs
“Better this than a Google dashboard, or slopped together third party libs.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “The CLI has abstracted that into one single reusable, scriptable command”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” Written in Rust
“Thanks for at least making a CLI in Rust instead of Python.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI” “It is nice to see that this is not JS, but Rust.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Google Cloud setup and auth are hard
“step 2 drops me to a fairly technical looking page where I have to configure Google Cloud”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “as cool+useful as this project looks, it's quite a bit harder to get going”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “Can someone explain to me, why Google can't (or does not want to) implement the same auth flow that any other SaaS company uses”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” - Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI”
- Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI”
- Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI”
Vibe-coded, unofficial, trust concerns
“Releasing vibe coded handling of google account credentials seems like the biggest problem with this.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI” “This type of probably well-meaning, but cowboy activity is not worth the risk to Google.”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI” “it's about the author of this tool using trademarks and effectively impersonating Google”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI” - Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Fired by Google for Creating the Google Workspace CLI”
- Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI”
Google could cut off or drop it
“Yet another way Google might decide you’ve violated their ToS and cut you off from your entire digital life without warning or recourse.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI” “Google will wait for businesses to become very coupled to this and then kill off the CLI just because.”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Googleworkspace/CLI”
Other privilege escalation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 70 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“one of the few actually useful tools for Workspace”
“Thanks for at least making a CLI in Rust instead of Python.”
“it's about the author of this tool using trademarks and effectively impersonating Google”
“there are at least some issues with auth which would make me really not trust it”
“Releasing vibe coded handling of google account credentials seems like the biggest problem with this.”
“releasing a vibe coded cli frontend for an official product in a google github org”
“this tool was sorely needed”
“creating something of value while under the foot of such evil”
“crank out a pretty decent and well received, by the community, product”
“made G workspace so much more useful to me personally”
“This type of probably well-meaning, but cowboy activity is not worth the risk to Google.”
“to create amazing projects like this”
“Might make your agent collaboration easier”
“Google initially included an MCP server but then removed it silently.”
“Google recently released that Google Workspace CLI is a perfect example.”
“Tried this out today and it feels half-baked unfortunately. I can't get auth working”
“so I just can't use this at all, because my newly created Google Cloud GCP app isn't trusted”
“now my lobster can stably do everything on my behalf vs. you do it all via computer use”
“Yet another way Google might decide you’ve violated their ToS and cut you off from your entire digital life without warning or recourse.”
“It is nice to see that this is not JS, but Rust.”
“This is another one I'll add to my repertoire”
“This is adblock * 1000, as far as consumers are concerned.”
“The CLI has abstracted that into one single reusable, scriptable command”
“as cool+useful as this project looks, it's quite a bit harder to get going”
“Google will wait for businesses to become very coupled to this and then kill off the CLI just because.”
“that github name made my spider senses tingle, large scale credentials harvesting?”
“step 2 drops me to a fairly technical looking page where I have to configure Google Cloud”
“Can someone explain to me, why Google can't (or does not want to) implement the same auth flow that any other SaaS company uses”
“I mean how hard is it to just imitate everyone else out there and make it a straight up npm install?”
“Work fine as a gog replacement for my limited use cases of reading and writing Sheets.”
“frustrating that they don’t bother to provide any docs on the actual commands this supports”
“idk why google makes something that should take 15s take tens of minutes to hours of head scratching”
“gives very easy access to the HTTP api docs via `gws schema`”
“it's great that we get this, hopefully it can continue to be maintained”
“a guide to use github releases attestation which I liked”
“for codex or claude cli this is a game changer”
“this will gel very well with my current project”
“Seems weird to require another tool (gcloud) to set it up, but it does look to be tightly integrated with google cloud.”
“Great, i hope this becomes a trend now that agent skills want clis”
“Better this than a Google dashboard, or slopped together third party libs.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.