PaperClipAI/doc/connections/GOOGLE-WORKSPACE.md

Google Workspace connections

Paperclip presents Google Workspace as nine independent Apps entries, not as one combined Google connection:

1. Gmail
2. Google Drive
3. Google Docs
4. Google Sheets
5. Google Slides
6. Google Calendar
7. Google Chat
8. Google People
9. Google Workspace Search

Each entry creates its own connection, consent grant, capability catalog, policy, audit trail, and reconnect/revoke lifecycle. Connecting Drive does not create a Docs or Sheets connection, and connecting Gmail does not enable Workspace Search.

Google's hosted Workspace MCP servers are Developer Preview services. The app cards remain independent even when several services use the same customer-owned Google OAuth client or the same Paperclip Cloud broker deployment.

Temporary Connections page visibility hold

While Google OAuth verification is pending, the Connections landing page (ui/src/pages/apps/Browse.tsx) hides all nine Google Workspace entries, including their saved accounts. This is a display-only filter. App definitions, direct setup and management routes, OAuth profiles, saved credentials, and runtime tools remain unchanged. This is not an access-control restriction.

Keep verification instances pinned to their pre-hold app release so reviewers can still find and test the integrations. After approval, remove the page's GOOGLE_CONNECTOR_SLUGS filter and update its visibility tests before upgrading those instances. Do not disable the shared definitions or broker profiles to control this page's visibility.

Developer Preview enrollment

Google grants preview access to the specific Workspace email addresses and Google Cloud project numbers registered with the program. Submitting the form is not the approval signal:

1. Google first sends a Google Group membership notification after verifying the Workspace account.
2. Google then sends a final confirmation after registering the Cloud project, usually within a couple of days. This final email is the signal that MCP testing can begin.
3. If no final confirmation arrives within a week, check spam and contact the Developer Preview program team from the program page.

Enrollment does not authorize every user of an OAuth client. Additional tester emails and Cloud projects must be added through Google's member request forms. Google's preview terms also prohibit making a pre-GA integration available to end users outside the enrolled company or domain unless Google grants explicit permission. Consequently, Paperclip-managed Google OAuth is limited to registered internal testers during preview. Other companies must enroll their own Workspace testers and Cloud project and use a customer-owned OAuth app until Google makes Workspace MCP generally available.

App matrix

App card	MCP endpoint	Capability choices
Gmail	https://gmailmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and create drafts
Google Drive	https://drivemcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and create files
Google Docs	https://docsmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and edit
Google Sheets	https://sheetsmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and edit; share selected sheets with the robot account
Google Slides	https://slidesmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and edit
Google Calendar	https://calendarmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and manage events
Google Chat	https://chatmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read only; read and send messages
Google People	https://people.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Read contacts
Google Workspace Search	https://workspacemcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1	Search Workspace

The setup flow asks for the capability first. When the managed method is available, it uses Paperclip by default. A small Use your own Google OAuth app link reveals the custom client fields; Use Paperclip instead returns to the managed method. The available authentication methods are:

• Connect with Paperclip uses the Paperclip Cloud broker when that exact profile is returned for this enrolled instance by the signed POST https://my.paperclip.app/v1/connector/instance-status request. The anonymous capabilities document is global discovery only and never enables an internal-pilot method locally.
• Use your own Google OAuth app uses customer-supplied OAuth credentials and the app definition's exact reviewed scopes.
• Use the Paperclip robot account remains an additional Google Sheets-only option for explicitly shared spreadsheets.

Before Google consent, the setup flow asks whether the credential is for just the connecting user or for any human in the company. A personal choice stores the tokens only on that user's grant. A company choice stores them on the default organization grant, while still recording which signed-in Google principal completed consent so refresh and reconnect stay bound to that principal.

Catalog discovery and connection creation use the same signed, instance-specific profile availability. Local enrollment files and Cloud-delivered environment identities follow this same path; neither enables managed methods globally in the static app definitions. Saved connections remain recognizable for OAuth callback, refresh, and revoke, while the broker enforces current profile access. Switching capability or authentication methods preserves the selected credential owner when the new method supports that owner.

Broker profiles

The Paperclip-managed method signs every broker request with one explicit profile. The broker binds that profile into sessions, one-time claims, sealed token envelopes, and refresh. Per-profile removal is local-only for managed Google grants. Google's revocation endpoint can invalidate all grants for the same user and managed client, so Paperclip does not call it while removing one Workspace profile.

App	Read profile	Write profile
Gmail	gmail.read	gmail.draft
Drive	drive.read	drive.write
Docs	docs.read	docs.write
Sheets	sheets.read	sheets.write
Slides	slides.read	slides.write
Calendar	calendar.read	calendar.write
Chat	chat.read	chat.write
People	people.read	—
Workspace Search	workspace-search.read	—

Every new signed request includes a profile. The Cloud broker rejects a request whose provider, profile, or exact scope set does not match its closed registry.

Instance configuration

All Paperclip-managed Google methods use the existing enrolled-instance keys:

PAPERCLIP_CLOUD_CONNECTOR_BASE_URL=https://my.paperclip.app
PAPERCLIP_CLOUD_CONNECTOR_ENVIRONMENT=production
PAPERCLIP_CLOUD_CONNECTOR_INSTANCE_ID=inst_example
PAPERCLIP_CLOUD_CONNECTOR_SIGN_PRIVATE_KEY=...
PAPERCLIP_CLOUD_CONNECTOR_SEAL_PRIVATE_KEY=...

No per-app client secret is stored on the Paperclip instance for the managed path. For customer-owned OAuth, the setup flow collects that customer's Google OAuth client ID and secret and stores them through the normal instance-vault path.

Cloud-hosted stacks receive these values through the existing per-stack secret delivery path. A self-hosted instance creates its keys during enrollment and stores them with owner-only permissions in the instance's ignored secret directory. The setup page supplies its authenticated same-origin HTTPS address to enrollment, so a normal Tailscale-hosted self-hoster does not need to edit config.json or set PAPERCLIP_PUBLIC_URL; the enrolled origin becomes the durable callback binding. The former PAPERCLIP_ID_CONNECTOR_* values use an incompatible Paperclip ID protocol and are not read aliases. Enroll with Paperclip Cloud and reconnect legacy grants before their old access tokens expire.

The gallery requests the broker capability document with a short cache. A Paperclip-managed method is omitted unless its exact profile is enabled at the broker; the independent app card and customer-owned OAuth method remain available. This supports profile-by-profile rollout and rollback without collapsing the nine cards into one app.

See Gmail connection for the detailed enrollment, signing, encryption, environment-isolation, and security review runbook inherited by all profiles.

Safety boundary

Every Google profile has an explicit MCP tool allowlist. Unknown Developer Preview tools default to disabled. Read profiles expose only reviewed read operations. Write profiles add only the reviewed write operations for their app; destructive or unreviewed tools do not become available merely because Google adds them upstream.

Service-specific minimum scopes (2026-09-30)

Docs, Sheets, and Slides request only their service's read-only scope in the read profile and its read/write scope in the write profile. They do not also request drive.readonly or drive.file: those are authorization alternatives, not additional requirements. Drive and Workspace Search retain their separate Drive permissions. Calendar write requests calendar.calendarlist.readonly and calendar.events; the latter also authorizes suggest_time. Calendar read retains calendar.events.freebusy alongside list/event read-only access.

References: Google's Docs read and update, Sheets read and update, Slides read and update, and Calendar suggest_time.

The write scopes support editing existing accessible files by ID. drive.file is a valid narrower alternative for app-authorized files, but would require a different per-file authorization workflow. Read-only profiles remain separate; the project-wide union is not the scope set requested by every connection.

Deploy with the matching Cloud broker registry and test fresh grants in staging before production. Signed authorization and refresh requests use exact scope sets, so mixed versions fail closed. The broker rejects old broader grants and refresh responses without explicit scope evidence for these reduced profiles. Reconnect affected connections; do not relabel or globally revoke existing tokens. Customer-owned methods request the same reduced sets on new consent; previously issued grants are not retroactively narrowed. The 21-scope integration union is unchanged by these profile-level reductions. Console must still keep Drive/free-busy entries required by other profiles and separately used identity scopes. Fresh provider proof is a release requirement, not implied by unit tests.

Google Chat scope reduction (2026-09-22)

chat.read requests only chat.spaces.readonly and chat.messages.readonly. chat.write adds chat.messages.create. The same sets apply to both managed and customer-owned OAuth methods. Neither requests chat.memberships.readonly nor chat.users.readstate.readonly.

Conversation lookup, message history, ordinary message search, and the write profile's message sending remain supported. Membership listing and marking messages read/unread remain outside the tool allowlist. search_messages cannot filter by read state: the app hides isUnread from its agent and Test schemas and rejects any explicit isUnread/is_unread argument, including false or null, before dispatch. It never silently drops the filter. The guard also applies to cached catalogs and existing broader grants.

References: Google's Chat MCP setup and message-search parameters.

Roll out the app and Cloud broker scope registries together in staging and production: their signed requests and sealed credentials use exact scope sets. During a mixed-version rollout, Chat authorization/refresh can fail closed. Existing Google tokens are not retroactively narrowed or revoked by this code change. A refresh response still containing removed scopes, or omitting the scope set needed to verify the grant, is rejected by the broker; reconnect affected Chat grants for new consent. Do not revoke the shared Google client to migrate one profile, because that can break other Workspace connections. After deployment, verify fresh reduced-scope consent, ordinary Chat search/history and sending, then reconcile Google Console and the verification evidence with the deployed scope set.