google-docs

Google Docs

Tools for working with Google Docs against the Google Docs API v1 (https://docs.googleapis.com/v1/) for document content, and the Google Drive API v3 (https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/) for the find / export / copy-template / folder operations the Docs API doesn't provide. 22 tools: create documents (blank, from text/Markdown, or from a template), read a document's structured content and tabs, export it as text/Markdown, find documents by name, and edit content — append / insert / find-and-replace / delete text, locate text positions, apply character and paragraph formatting, make bulleted/numbered lists, insert and edit tables, create headers / footers / footnotes, insert and replace inline images, and set page/margin/background style.

Independent, unofficial connector for Google Docs. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google Docs. "Google Docs" is a trademark of its owner, used only to identify the service this connector works with.

When to use this

• An agent needs to create a document — blank, from initial text or Markdown, or by filling a {{placeholder}} template, optionally in a specific Drive folder.
• An agent needs to read a document — its structured content + edit indices (getDocument), clean text/Markdown (exportDocument), or to find documents by name (findDocuments) and locate text (findText).
• An agent needs to edit text — append, insert at a position, find-and-replace, or delete a range.
• An agent needs to format or restyle — apply character formatting; make bulleted or numbered lists (createList); set paragraph style — headings, alignment, line spacing, indentation (formatParagraph); insert/replace inline images; or set page size / margins / background.
• An agent needs to structure the document — insert a table and fill its cells (insertTable), add/remove table rows or columns (modifyTable), create a header or footer with its text (createHeader / createFooter) and style it by passing the returned segmentId to formatText, or add a footnote (createFootnote) and write its body via insertText targeting the returned segmentId.

Setup

This is an agentskills.io skill.

If the connector has not been installed as a skill yet, install it first with npx skills add zapier/connectors --skill google-docs (or your harness's own skill-install mechanism), then continue here. Installing the skill copies these files, not dependencies. Before running the CLI, a local MCP server, or zapier-sdk auth commands, run npm install --omit=dev here once. Importing the published package as a dependency in your own project instead? That npm install already resolves everything — see references/use-as-sdk.md.

Want the actual repo source instead — to browse references/, run this connector's tests, or hack on it? See README.md for a scoped git clone.

The connector runs on Node.js 22.18+. Pick the reference that matches how you're running it, and load it before doing anything else:

You have...	Load
An MCP-aware client — tools may already be loaded (e.g. mcp__google-docs__<tool>), or you can register a local server yourself (or guide the user to)	references/use-as-mcp.md
Terminal / subprocess access (you can run node)	references/use-as-cli.md
Only your own code, importing this package as a dependency	references/use-as-sdk.md
No tool access, no terminal, no ability to import this package — you write your own code that calls the Google Docs API directly (e.g. a code-execution sandbox)	references/use-as-recipe.md

Scripts

All scripts use the single google-docs connection (one OAuth credential authorizes both the Docs and Drive hosts).

Script	Script name	Connections	Description
scripts/createDocument.ts	createDocument	google-docs	Create a new document, optionally with initial text/Markdown and in a folder.
scripts/createDocumentFromTemplate.ts	createDocumentFromTemplate	google-docs	Copy a template document and fill its {{placeholder}} tokens.
scripts/getDocument.ts	getDocument	google-docs	Read a document's structured content, tabs, and edit indices.
scripts/exportDocument.ts	exportDocument	google-docs	Export a document as plain text or Markdown.
scripts/findDocuments.ts	findDocuments	google-docs	Find Google Docs documents by name and/or folder.
scripts/appendText.ts	appendText	google-docs	Append text (optionally Markdown) to the end of a document.
scripts/insertText.ts	insertText	google-docs	Insert text at a specific index.
scripts/replaceAllText.ts	replaceAllText	google-docs	Find and replace all occurrences of a string.
scripts/findText.ts	findText	google-docs	Locate occurrences of a phrase and return their index ranges.
scripts/deleteContentRange.ts	deleteContentRange	google-docs	Delete the content in an index range.
scripts/formatText.ts	formatText	google-docs	Apply character formatting to an index range.
scripts/formatParagraph.ts	formatParagraph	google-docs	Set paragraph style (heading, alignment, spacing, indentation) on a range.
scripts/createList.ts	createList	google-docs	Make a range a bulleted or numbered list, or convert between the two.
scripts/removeListFormatting.ts	removeListFormatting	google-docs	Remove bullets/numbering from a range, leaving the text.
scripts/insertImage.ts	insertImage	google-docs	Insert an inline image from a public URL.
scripts/replaceImage.ts	replaceImage	google-docs	Replace an existing inline image with a new one.
scripts/updateDocumentStyle.ts	updateDocumentStyle	google-docs	Set page size, margins, or background color.
scripts/insertTable.ts	insertTable	google-docs	Insert a rows×columns table, optionally seeded with cell contents.
scripts/modifyTable.ts	modifyTable	google-docs	Add or remove a table row or column at a reference cell.
scripts/createHeader.ts	createHeader	google-docs	Create the default header with its text; returns the segmentId for styling via formatText.
scripts/createFooter.ts	createFooter	google-docs	Create the default footer with its text; returns the segmentId for styling via formatText.
scripts/createFootnote.ts	createFootnote	google-docs	Insert a footnote reference; returns its segmentId for insertText.

Disambiguation & refusals

Disambiguation before a write. Before editing a document you looked up by name with findDocuments, count the exact case-insensitive title matches:

• Exactly one match — act on it. Don't over-ask; a single unambiguous match is the answer.
• Two or more that tie — stop. List the tied candidates with a distinguishing field (modifiedTime or url) and ask the user which one they mean. Don't pick arbitrarily and don't edit all of them.

This also applies to index positions: indices from getDocument / findText go stale after any edit. Re-read before the next index-based call rather than reusing positions across edits.

Unsupported operations — say so and stop; don't fake it with another tool. This catalog deliberately does not:

• Upload a binary file and convert it to a Doc, or round-trip pasted HTML. Use a Drive connector for binary uploads; compose content natively here.
• Manage comments or accept/reject suggestions. getDocument can read suggested edits via suggestionsViewMode, but there is no write tool for comments or suggestions.
• Export to PDF, DOCX, or HTML as inline content. exportDocument returns plain text or Markdown only; PDF, DOCX, and HTML need a Drive download link (Drive only offers HTML as a zipped Web Page bundle, not inline text/html).

If asked for any of these, tell the user it's unsupported and stop — don't reach for an unrelated tool to approximate it.

Auth

Every shape passes auth as one connection selector, not the secret — a [<resolver>:]<value> string. Every connector accepts zapier:<connection-id> (Zapier-managed auth — routes through Zapier's auth, retries, and governance layer); some also accept one or more direct-token resolvers (naming and count vary per connector) — check this connector's own resolvers rather than assuming. The <resolver>: prefix is optional; a bare value goes to the first resolver that claims it — a UUID-shaped bare value always claims zapier:. Each script declares the connections it needs and the resolvers each accepts. The exact syntax for passing a connection (and how to see this connector's resolver list) differs by shape — see the reference you loaded above.

Checking what's already configured first? Don't dump environment values to do it — env or env | grep <name> prints the value along with the name, leaking a live credential into the transcript if one is set. Check names only (env | cut -d= -f1 | grep -i <name>) or test a known name directly ([ -n "$VAR_NAME" ]).

No connection yet? Pick one — and follow the reference's own flow to obtain it; never just ask the user for a connection id or token as if they already have one memorized:

	Load
Pass the credential directly	references/use-without-zapier.md
Route it through a Zapier connection	references/use-with-zapier.md

Output format

Every script returns a { data, meta } envelope:

• data — the script's result (the shape its outputSchema declares; see the reference you loaded above for how to inspect a script's exact schema in your shape).
• meta.outputDataValidation — what validating data did:
  • { skipped: false, droppedPaths: null } — validated, nothing removed.
  • { skipped: false, droppedPaths: [...], instruction } — validated, but those paths were stripped from data: fields the script returned from the API that the outputSchema doesn't declare. If you need them, re-run with output validation skipped.
  • { skipped: true } — validation was bypassed; data is the raw, unchecked script output.

Reading dropped fields / skipOutputDataValidation. To receive the raw, unvalidated result, opt out of output validation (the exact syntax differs by shape — see the reference you loaded above). Input validation is never skipped.

Trimming the result / filterOutputData. To shrink a large result down to the fields you need, pass a jq expression that post-processes data (again, exact syntax per shape). The jq runs against data only, NOT the { data, meta } envelope, so write it rooted at data (run the script's --help — or your shape's equivalent — to see its output schema). The transformed value replaces data, meta is preserved, and the result is NOT re-validated against the output schema.

References

Load the matching reference file before working in that area:

Reference	Covers	Load it when
references/google-docs-api-gotchas.md	UTF-16 indexes, the index-0 section break, stale indexes after edits, the undeletable final newline, includeTabsContent, per-tab targeting defaults, Drive-backed find/export/foldering, image fetch + size limits, and PT/RGB units.	Before any index-based edit (insert/format/delete), find-and-replace, image insert, document export, or folder placement.
references/google-docs-batchupdate.md	Descending-order rule, the seeded-table two-phase fill, list nesting via leading tabs, the second segment-index space (empty header/footer end index 1 → text-at-creation), delete-last-row-deletes-table, and the supported Markdown subset.	Before authoring structure — lists (createList/removeListFormatting), tables (insertTable/modifyTable), headers/footers/footnotes (createHeader/createFooter/createFootnote), or the markdown: true write path.