Exploring Workspace Intelligence Skills using the Workspace CLI and Gemini CLIs with Apps Script API Executables

The most striking demonstration at Google Cloud Next ‘26 was the “Chat Command Centre”. Julie Quan Kim showed how a user might invoke a “regional campaign skill” to orchestrate complex tasks across Docs, Slides, and external CRM data. While we have yet to see how “skills” will be created and managed, developers can already prototype these agentic behaviours using the Workspace CLI (gws) and the Gemini CLI.

These tools are the perfect laboratories for developing “skills” that could eventually be used in your own Workspace Intelligence platform. To test the boundaries of this, I have been building a “recipe” that fetches a webpage, converts the content into a natively formatted Google Doc, and then executes additional logic via Google Apps Script.

The Practical Bridge: The Web-to-Doc Recipe

This recipe, published in this repo, hopefully demonstrates how we can orchestrate a multi-step workflow using different tools. It is worth noting that the development of this very skill was facilitated by a specialised skill-creator subagent included in the latest Gemini CLI. This dedicated assistant handles the initialisation and packaging of new capabilities, which in itself makes the transition from a manual workflow to a reusable agentic skill remarkably easy.

The core logic of the Web-to-Doc recipe is defined in a simple SKILL.md file, which instructs the local agent to follow a strict pipeline:

1. Extraction via Node.js: The skill instructs the CLI to execute a local Node.js script (extract_article.js), which uses Mozilla’s readability and turndown libraries. This gives us a clean, “Reader View” markdown version of the article, stripping away the navigation menus and ads. With the announcement of the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform I think it is very probable that Workspace customers would be able to use similar functions hosted in Cloud Run.
2. Native Conversion via CLI: Next, the agent passes this markdown file directly to the Workspace CLI. By explicitly setting the MIME type to application/vnd.google-apps.document, the CLI takes advantage of the Drive API’s ability to convert markdown into formatted Google Docs. With the announcement Workspace MCPs, including Drive, a similar conversion should be possible without the Workspace CLI
3. Refinement via Apps Script: This is my favourite part of the process. To ensure the embedded images do not overflow the document margins, the skill triggers a deployed Google Apps Script function (resizer.gs) using the gws script scripts run command. This is a level of precise document manipulation, specifically calculating page margins to ensure images do not overflow, is one that the high-level Drive API cannot perform during a simple import.

Governance and Security

Moving to this atomic, skill-based architecture is not without its friction. This homebrew approach of using different CLIs and managing authentication scopes across different local and cloud environments can be a severe headache and is very difficult to scale.

It also remains unclear if the Workspace Intelligence skills will include a script.run functionality found in the Workspace CLI. If it is included, it would be an exceptionally powerful way to extend skill capabilities. It would mean being able to build modular, portable sets of very repeatable code using the existing power, functionality and affordances of Apps Script.

This is where it will be very interesting to see how Workspace Intelligence manages this with the appropriate security and governance, especially considering the risks associated with Workspace MCP servers and the risk of indirect prompt injection attacks.

This is a rapidly evolving space. The ability to prototype these behaviours today using the Workspace CLI provides a direct path to understanding how the Agentic Enterprise could operate.