Connector · Docs and files
A Google Drive teammate in Slack that finds files and answers from them.
Chickpea gives a channel a named AI teammate that holds its own Google Drive connection. It searches My Drive and the shared drives the signed-in account belongs to, opens a file, reads it, and answers in the thread. It can write one thing back, a new text file, and that is the whole of what it changes in Drive.
What people ask it.
The teammate is @pm, in #ops. Pick a scenario to watch it play.
| File | Folder | Owner | Last change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor agreement, Halvorsen Supply, 2026 (signed) | Ops / Contracts | Priya | Aug 14 |
| Vendor agreement, Halvorsen, draft 3 | Ops / Drafts | Marco | Aug 11 |
| Halvorsen terms, redline | Ops / Drafts | Priya | Aug 8 |
| Vancouver suppliers, shortlist | Ops | Dana | Jun 2 |
Find a file by name or by what is in it Read only
@pm find the vendor agreement we signed with the Vancouver supplier
@pm which doc has the Q3 headcount plan in it, and who owns it
Reads never need confirmation. The teammate runs a Drive search, reads the metadata for the files that look right, and opens the likely one to check. A search covers My Drive and every shared drive the account belongs to, and returns at most 100 files a page. Several candidates come back as a table with the owner, the last change, and a link.
Answer a question out of a document Read only
@pm what does the renewal clause in the Northwind contract actually say
@pm summarise the incident write-up from Tuesday and list the follow-ups
The teammate reads or exports the one file you meant and answers from it. A result is capped at 256 KB before it reaches the model, so a large file is refused rather than trimmed into a wrong answer. File content is untrusted input. A document cannot instruct the teammate, whoever wrote it.
What changed in a folder this week Read only
@pm what was added to the Ops Handbook folder in the last seven days
@pm list the files in the vendor folder nobody has touched since June
A folder search comes back with names, owners, and modified times, which is what a "what changed" answer is built from. There is no Drive webhook here, so the teammate hears nothing on its own. It looks when you ask, or on a schedule you set.
Write the answer back into Drive Applies at once
@pm write this thread up as a file called Vendor decisions and put it in my Drive
@pm save the checklist we just agreed as a text file
A new file is small and reversible, so it applies at once. The teammate creates one text-backed file, up to 100,000 characters, in the root of the connected account's Drive, and it starts private to that account. The reply names the file and links it. Moving it, renaming it, and sharing it are not in the capability list, so those stay yours to do in Drive.
On a schedule Applies at once
@pm every Monday at 9am Pacific, list what was added to the Ops Handbook folder last week
@pm every Friday at 4pm Eastern, post the files in the vendor folder that changed this week
A schedule saves on the spot. It needs an explicit time zone, and "every Monday at 9am" without one is refused rather than guessed. Each run uses the Google Drive connection of the person who asked. Before every run Chickpea re-reads the teammate, the channel grant, and that connection, and a missing one fails the run with a named reason.
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 Drive, and choose Connect. Or ask in Slack,
@pm connect Google Drive, and follow the link it posts. - Choose who uses it. Personal means each member signs in as themselves, which fits a channel where people keep work in their own My Drive. Team is one shared Google account, which fits a team whose files live in a shared drive that account belongs to. A team account needs the Owner or Admin role.
- Choose Continue to sign in. A hosted Google 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, never in Slack, and there is no token to paste anywhere in this connector.
- Read the permissions on Google's screen before approving. The grant Google shows you can be wider than the four capabilities Chickpea hands the teammate, and approving it does not widen the teammate.
- Ask something. Drive needs no selection step after sign-in, so it is ready immediately.
@pm find the vendor agreement we signed last quarteris a good first question, because it only reads.
A connection belongs to one teammate. Giving a second teammate Google Drive means a second sign-in with its own consent, so the support teammate never inherits the files the ops teammate can reach. Each Google service is its own connection and its own consent screen, so Drive, Docs, and Sheets are connected one at a time.
A managed connector has no discovered tool list. The teammate is handed a fixed list of capabilities that Chickpea curates, not Google's whole Drive API. Four cover Google Drive: search files and folders, read one file's metadata, read or export one file, and create a text file. Three of the four read. Nothing in the list moves, renames, copies, shares, changes permissions on, trashes, or deletes a file, and there is no raw API passthrough to reach around it. The capability list is in the product source.
Beside Google Drive
What the same teammate usually holds too.
Each is its own connection, granted to the teammate alone. All 37 connectors.
Drive finds the document, Docs reads its structure and edits it
Google SheetsThe file the teammate found, and the numbers inside the sheet beside it
NotionThe archive lives in Drive, the page people actually read lives in Notion
AsanaA file someone asked about becomes an owned task with a due date
Questions people ask
Is there an MCP for Google Drive?
Yes, and Google runs one. Google documents a remote Drive MCP server at drivemcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1, which it describes as letting AI agents interact with Google Drive data. Its reference lists eight tools: copy_file, create_file, download_file_content, get_file_metadata, get_file_permissions, list_recent_files, read_file_content, and search_files. Setting it up takes a Google Cloud project, the Drive and Drive MCP APIs enabled, an OAuth consent screen, and a client configuration. Google names Antigravity and Claude as clients, and the server sits in its Workspace Developer Preview Program.
Does it use Google's MCP server?
No. Google Drive is a managed connector here, and nothing in it speaks MCP. The teammate is handed four curated capabilities that reach Drive through the Google account you signed in with. There is no server address to configure, no Cloud project, and no client config file. Google's server puts Drive in one person's editor or chat client. This puts it in a channel, where the answer is visible to everyone who can read the thread.
Is there an AI for Google Drive?
Google sells one. Gemini in Drive, by Google's own description, researches across several files, searches and retrieves files through AI Overviews, summarises files and folders, creates content, images and audio overviews, and organises files. Google says you need an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan to use it. It lives inside Drive. A Chickpea teammate lives in a Slack channel, holds other accounts beside Drive, and answers where the conversation already is.
Can it delete a file?
No. The Drive capability list has four entries and none of them deletes, trashes, or empties anything. Under the 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 your current message names that action. A capability that does not exist cannot be named into existence.
Can it move, rename, or share a file?
No, and that is the real limit of this connector. The four capabilities search, read metadata, read or export a file, and create a text file. Moving a file between folders, renaming one, copying one, changing who can see it, and starring one are all absent. Ask the teammate to find and read, and do the filing yourself. When the work is inside a document rather than around it, give the teammate Google Docs or Sheets as well.
Which files can it see?
Whatever the connected Google account can see. A search covers My Drive and every shared drive that account belongs to, so a team account reaches the shared drives it was added to and nothing else. Chickpea never widens that. Choose a personal connection if you do not want everyone who can use the teammate reading through one shared account, and check Google's consent screen when you sign in, because the grant there can be wider than the four capabilities.
How much of a file can it read?
A managed result is capped at 256 KB before it reaches the model, and a read above that is rejected rather than silently cut. A search returns at most 100 files a page, with a cursor for the next one. A file the teammate creates carries at most 100,000 characters of text. The limits live in the input schemas rather than in a prompt, so no amount of asking moves them.
Do I still need the Google Drive app for Slack?
Most teams want both, because they run in opposite directions. Slack's Google Drive app pushes out: it shows a rich preview when someone posts a file, creates a new Doc, Slide or Sheet from Slack, brings an existing file into a channel, prompts you to fix permissions when members cannot open what you shared, notifies you when someone comments on your file, requests access, or shares one with you, and lets you reply to those comments from Slack. A Chickpea teammate posts nothing unprompted. It waits to be asked, searches across the Drive it is connected to rather than the files already pasted into Slack, and answers in the thread.
How do I connect Google to Slack?
For Slack's own Drive app, one person installs it to the workspace and everyone else connects their account. For a Chickpea teammate, open the teammate in Admin, choose Google Drive, pick personal or team, and finish the Google sign-in in the tab that opens. Or ask in the channel, "@pm connect Google Drive", and follow the link it posts. Drive asks for no resource selection afterwards, so it works as soon as the sign-in finishes.
Which Google plan does this need?
Google names no plan for this. What the teammate can read is what the Google account you signed in with can read, so seats and sharing inside your Workspace decide the rest. Google does name plans for two neighbouring things worth keeping straight: Gemini in Drive needs an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan, and Google's Drive MCP server is part of its Workspace Developer Preview Program. Neither is involved here.
Try it
Give a channel a Google Drive teammate.
One deploy into your own Cloudflare account, connect Slack, sign in to Google Drive, 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 Drive's own pages on September 17, 2026. This page is also available as markdown at /connectors/google-drive.md.