My experience setting up `google_workspace_mcp`

my-setup.md

Setup steps for Google Workspace MCP Server

Step 1

• Create OAuth 2.0 credentials (web application) in Google Cloud Console
• Navigate to APIs & Services > Credentials, then click Create Credentials > OAuth client ID.
• Select the appropriate application type (Web application) and configure any necessary settings like redirect URIs or JavaScript origins.

Step 2

• To the OAuth 2.0 credentials form, add redirect URI: http://localhost:8000/oauth2callback
• Click create

Step 3

• From the post-create modal, download credentials, name them client_secret.json and put them in your in project root

Step 4

• In the Audience section (left), add your email as a test user.

Step 5

• Configure your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc) to run the local MCP server. Steps vary, see here.
• My final config in Claude Code:

  claude mcp add google_workspace -e GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRETS=~/Code/mcp-servers/client_secret.json -- uvx workspace-mcp --tools gmail
  

Step 6

• Tell your AI, "Alright, you should have access to a suite of tools for interacting with my google workspace. Can you see if you can authenticate with it? My email is ..."

Step 7

• Click on the OAuth URL provided by the AI, grant the OAuth app permissions.
  • If you have trouble clicking on the URL, have the AI write it to a file.

Step 8

• Navigate to APIs & Services > Enabled APIs & services
• Click + Enable APIs and services
• Enable the APIs you want to use, e.g. Gmail API
• If ever you want to use an API that you haven't enabled, the AI will hit a helpful error message with a URL to that brings you to the page to enable it.