Connector · Docs and files
A Google Docs teammate in Slack that reads your documents and drafts the next one.
Chickpea gives a Slack channel a named AI teammate that holds its own Google Docs connection. It finds the documents the connected Google account can open, reads them, and answers in the thread. It also writes: a new document from a Slack thread, or a section replaced in one you named. Sharing a document, changing who can see it, and deleting one are absent from the list it is handed.
What people ask it.
The teammate is @pm, in #ops. Pick a scenario to watch it play.
Summarize a document Read only
@pm summarize the Q4 ops plan doc and list what is still open
@pm what does the onboarding guide say about the trial, in three lines
Reads never need confirmation. The teammate finds the document, then reads it as bounded plain text, with tables, headers, footers, and footnotes kept in or left out. A result over 256 KB is refused rather than quietly trimmed, so a very long document comes back as a narrower question instead of half an answer.
Find what the documents say about something Read only
@pm which onboarding docs mention the 30-day trial, and what do they say
@pm find where we wrote down the vendor escalation path
Search takes a phrase and returns up to a hundred documents a page, and the teammate reads the ones that matter. A long answer comes back as a table in the thread. Document text is untrusted content, so an instruction written inside a document cannot tell the teammate to do anything.
Turn a thread into a document Applies at once
@pm turn this thread into a doc called Vendor review notes, decisions first
@pm write up the incident as a doc with a timeline and the follow-ups
A new document is a small write, so it applies at once and the reply names what it made. The teammate can create a plain-text document or build one from Markdown, up to 100,000 characters. It lands in the Drive of the connected account, and sending the link is your job, because sharing is not a capability here.
Append or replace a section Asks first
@pm add a Status section to the four launch docs saying the date moved to Nov 3
@pm replace the Timeline section in the launch plan with the new dates
Three capabilities edit a document that already exists: insert text at the end or at an explicit position, replace one section between two positions, and replace a whole tab. Replacing overwrites what was there, and several documents at once is a broad change, so it comes back as a list of what would change and waits for a yes. Google Docs version history is the way back.
On a schedule Applies at once
@pm every Monday at 9am Pacific, post a summary of the Ops weekly doc here
@pm every Friday at 4pm Eastern, list the open questions in the launch plan
A schedule saves on the spot. It needs an explicit time zone and runs under the Google connection of the person who asked. Before each run Chickpea re-reads the teammate, the channel grant, and that connection, and a missing one fails the run with a named reason. A digest of everything that changed in a folder wants the Google Drive connector beside this one, because the Docs search takes a phrase rather than a folder.
Connect it
Five steps, from Admin or from Slack.
You sign in through a page Chickpea serves, never in Slack. The link the teammate posts is good for one action, for one teammate, for 24 hours.
- In Chickpea Admin, open the teammate, then Connections, find Google Docs, and choose Connect. Or ask in Slack,
@pm connect Google Docs, and follow the link it posts. - Choose who uses it. Team is one shared Google account that everyone who can use the teammate works through, and it needs the Owner or Admin role. Personal means each member signs in as themselves and reaches only the documents their own account can open.
- Choose Continue to sign in. A hosted sign-in opens in a second tab while Chickpea waits in the first, and the attempt lasts 30 minutes. You sign in to Google there. There is no token to paste anywhere in this connector, and nothing goes into Slack.
- Read the permissions on Google's screen before approving, because that grant can be wider than the capabilities Chickpea hands the teammate. There is nothing further to pick afterwards. Google Docs asks for no resource selection, so the connection is usable as soon as sign-in finishes.
- Ask something.
@pm summarize the Q4 ops plan docis a good first question, because it only reads and nothing in the document changes.
A connection belongs to one teammate. Giving a second teammate Google Docs means a second sign-in with its own consent, so the support teammate never inherits what the ops teammate can open. Each Google service is its own connection and its own consent screen, so Docs, Drive, and Sheets are three of them.
A managed connector has no discovered tool list. The teammate is handed a fixed list of capabilities that Chickpea curates, not the whole Google Docs API. Nine cover Google Docs. Four read: search the documents the account can open, read one document's structure, read it as bounded plain text, and export it as a PDF. Five write: create a document, create one from Markdown, insert text at the end or at an explicit position, replace a section, and replace one tab's content. Sharing, permission changes, deletion, and arbitrary batch requests are absent from the list. The capability list is in the product source.
Beside Google Docs
What the same teammate usually holds too.
Each is its own connection, granted to the teammate alone. All 37 connectors.
Drive finds the file in a folder, Docs reads and edits what is inside it
Google SheetsThe write-up in a document, the numbers it quotes in a sheet
NotionHalf the team writes in Docs and half in Notion, one teammate reads both
GranolaThe meeting notes on one side, the document they turn into on the other
Questions people ask
Do I still need the Google Drive app for Slack?
Most teams want both, and there is no separate Google Docs app for Slack; documents ride on the Drive one. Slack says its Google Drive app lets you create, share, and access Google Drive files from your workspace, covering documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. It notifies you when someone comments on your files, requests access, or shares one with you, it lets you reply to comments, and it shows a rich preview when a file link is pasted. One member installs it and each person connects their own Google account. Keep it for links, previews, and notifications. A Chickpea teammate hears nothing from Google and posts nothing unprompted. It sits in the channel, reads the documents when asked, and writes the next one.
Is this Gemini in Google Docs?
No, and they sit in different places. Google describes Gemini in Docs as a side panel you open with Ask Gemini, where it writes and edits, summarizes, refines and rewrites, adjusts tone, generates images, and references your other files. Google says that feature requires an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan. It lives inside the document, with one person in front of it. A Chickpea teammate lives in a Slack channel, holds other accounts beside Docs, and answers where the conversation already is. Gemini keeps working exactly as it does now.
Does it use Google's Docs MCP server?
No. Google Docs is a managed connector here, and nothing in it speaks MCP. Google does run one: its developer docs describe a remote Docs MCP server at docsmcp.googleapis.com with two tools, read_doc and update_doc, which you set up by enabling APIs in a Google Cloud project, configuring an OAuth consent screen, creating client credentials, and pasting a server block into a client such as Antigravity or Claude. That puts Docs in one person's client. This puts it in a channel, with no project to create and no config file to edit.
Can it change anything in Google Docs?
Yes, within the five write capabilities: create a document, create one from Markdown, insert text, replace a section, and replace a tab. Minor reversible writes may proceed; broad ones wait for a yes. Under that judgment sits a gate that does not consult the model. During a Slack turn Chickpea refuses any managed capability whose effect is not read unless the message you just sent names that action, so thread history, a pasted document, and memory cannot authorize a write on their own.
Can it delete a document?
No. Deletion is not in the capability list, and neither is sharing a document, changing who can see one, nor an arbitrary batch request against the Docs API. What it can overwrite is text inside a document you named, when you replace a section or a tab, and that comes back for confirmation when it is broad. Google Docs keeps version history, which is the way back from an edit you did not want.
Which documents can it see?
The ones the connected Google account can open. There is no resource selection on this connector, unlike Search Console, Analytics, and Gong, which stay pending until an Admin picks sites, properties, or workspaces. So the account is the boundary. A team account is one shared sign-in that everyone who can use the teammate works through, so choose personal if you want each member to reach only their own documents.
What does bounded mean on this connector?
Limits written into the input schema rather than left to the model. A search returns at most 100 documents a page. The text of a created or replacing document is capped at 100,000 characters. Inserting text needs either the end of the document or an explicit position, and replacing a section needs an end position after its start. Every result is capped at 256 KB, and a bigger one is refused rather than trimmed, so nothing comes back silently shortened.
Can it export a document as a PDF?
Yes. Exporting one document as a PDF is one of the four read capabilities, beside search, reading the structure, and reading the plain text. Posting the file back into Slack is itself one of the actions behind the gate, so it happens because you asked for it in the message you sent, not on the teammate's own initiative.
How do I sync Google with Slack?
Nothing is synced or copied here, which is the point. The teammate holds a Google Docs connection and opens a document at the moment you ask about it. Each Google service is its own connector and its own sign-in, so Docs, Drive, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, and Calendar are six separate connections, and one teammate can hold several of them at once. If what you want instead is file links, previews, and comment notifications flowing into a channel, that is Slack's Google Drive app, and the two sit happily side by side.
Try it
Give a channel a Google Docs teammate.
One deploy into your own Cloudflare account, connect Slack, sign in to Google Docs, ask. Apache 2.0, no seats, no metering.
Or run it on Node. The setup guide covers both.
Last checked
Facts on this page were checked against the product and Google Docs's own pages on September 17, 2026. This page is also available as markdown at /connectors/google-docs.md.