# gdocs-mcp MCP Server

Treat a Google Doc like a local file: content editing, tracked-changes review, comments, tables.

**Publisher claimed.** No tool list reported, and Pod has not connected to this server.

## Status

Pod has not dialled gdocs-mcp yet, so everything on this page is what its publisher reported rather than what we observed. Registries describe servers; they do not connect to them. Until a check runs, treat the tool list below as a claim.

## Connect

Published as `@dasasian/gdocs-mcp` on npm. Runs locally.

## Known issues

**37 problems reported by people outside the maintainer team.** Issues filed by the project's own owners, members and collaborators are excluded — those are release checklists and internal refactors, not things that will go wrong for you. Showing 12.

### Most discussed

### Collapse the Drive tools onto filesystem vocabulary (ls/find/mkdir/cp/mv)

## The idea

Reduce the tool surface by leaning on vocabulary the model already has, rather than inventing parameters it must be taught. Instead of five Drive tools with bespoke names, one tool speaking a filesystem it knows cold.

This is not a new pattern here. The project already does it twice: `read_doc`/`overwrite_doc` borrow markdown, `edit_doc` borrows the `old_string`/`new_string` file-edit idiom, and 0.3.0 put text styling on CSS.

## When the trick works

Three conditions have to hold 

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/44) · 2026-08-16 · open · 2 comments

### Markdown parser misreads long underscore runs (signature blank lines) as bold delimiters

### Summary
Signature blocks in lease documents commonly use long runs of plain underscores as blank lines to sign on (e.g. `_______________________`). When such a run appears in markdown passed to the doc-writing tools, the parser appears to misinterpret parts of the run as bold (`**`) emphasis delimiters, injecting stray `**` into the rendered document instead of leaving the underscores as literal blank-line characters.

### Repro
While reformatting a lease document to match the signature-bloc

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/15) · 2026-07-13 · closed · 2 comments

### create_doc silently drops/merges text when content is a long, repetitive document

### Summary
`create_doc`'s `content` parameter is a raw string with no file-passthrough option (`baseDir` only resolves relative *image* paths, not the document body). This means the calling model has to fully regenerate long documents as text rather than passing them through mechanically. For long, repetitive text — legal documents in particular, full of near-duplicate clauses like "Tenant shall..." / "Landlord shall..." — that regeneration step can silently drop or fuse substrings, with no err

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/14) · 2026-07-13 · closed · 2 comments

### Table and image insertion have split feature sets between the tool path and the markdown path

## What's wrong

Tables and images can each be inserted two ways, and the two paths support
different features. Which capabilities you get depends on which entry point you
happened to use.

### Tables

| | `insert_table` tool (`objects.ts:insertTable`) | markdown renderer (`document.ts:insertTableAt`) |
|---|---|---|
| per-column alignment | no | **yes** (`:---:` / `---:`) |
| inline markdown in cells | no (plain text) | **yes** (`parseInline`) |
| `columnWidths` | **yes** | no |
| `headerShade`

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/29) · 2026-08-16 · closed · 1 comment

### feat: surface parent folder(s) in search_drive/list_folder results

No tool can answer "what folder is this file/folder inside?" `search_drive` and `list_folder` results omit the `parents` field entirely, so there's no way to trace a folder's location upward — only top-down browsing from an id you already have.

**Repro case:** found the "Legal" folder via `search_drive`, needed to know its parent to create an "Onboarding" folder as a sibling. No tool exposes that.

**Why this is a quick fix, not a Drive API gap:** the code already fetches `parents` internally —

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/26) · 2026-08-05 · closed · 1 comment

### Most recent

### Destructive commands in the Drive shell: wait for elicitation, and for someone to ask

Deferred out of #44. The filesystem shell (`ls`/`find`/`mkdir`/`cp`/`mv`) ships with **no destructive command** — no `rm`, no `rmdir`. This records why, and what would have to change to revisit it.

## Nothing is being removed

There is no destructive Drive tool in the surface today. No `delete_doc`, no `rmdir`. `unshare_doc` is sharing (deliberately out of #44's scope) and `delete_tab` is tabs. So deferring `rm` collapses nothing and loses no capability — it only declines to *add* one.

That is

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/47) · 2026-08-21 · open · 0 comments

### Orphaned files are invisible: findable only if you already know they exist

## What's wrong

A Drive file can end up with no parent. It still exists, still opens, still turns up in a search — but it is in no folder, so nothing that browses the tree will ever show it. You only find it if you already remember it is there, which is precisely what nobody does.

On this account, 4 of 55 visible files are in that state:

```
MASTER_Colorado Pinball Pub…   ownedByMe=false  sharedWithMe=true
Roof                           ownedByMe=true   sharedWithMe=false
Appliances          

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/46) · 2026-08-16 · open · 0 comments

### set_style and edit_doc now overlap, and neither says which to use

## What's wrong

Since 0.3.0, `<span style="color:…;font-size:…pt;font-family:…">` round-trips — the reader emits it and the writer parses it. That was the point of #30, and it had a side effect nobody recorded: there are now two ways to style existing text.

```
set_style({from: "the sentence"}, {color: "#1a73e8"})

edit_doc(old_string: "the sentence",
         new_string: '<span style="color:#1a73e8">the sentence</span>')
```

Both work. Neither tool's description mentions the other.

## Why i

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/45) · 2026-08-16 · closed · 0 comments

### unshare_doc has no guard, and it is the one operation with no undo

## What's wrong

Every other sensitive operation in the surface makes the caller echo back a fact they had to fetch first. `unshare_doc` takes nothing:

```ts
inputSchema: { documentId: z.string(), email: z.string(), ...accountArg }
```

| tool | guard | required |
|---|---|---|
| `apply_suggestions` | `expectedChange`, `documentTitle` | yes |
| `delete_tab` | `expectTitle` | yes |
| `overwrite_doc` | `expectTitle`, `force` | no |
| `update_doc` | `expectTitle` | no |
| `resolve_comment` | `expe

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/43) · 2026-08-16 · closed · 0 comments

### list_permissions drops domain and allowFileDiscovery, so grants render as null

## What's wrong

`src/drive/sharing.ts` requests only:

```ts
const FIELDS = 'permissions(id,type,role,emailAddress,displayName)';
```

`domain` and `allowFileDiscovery` are never asked for, so a domain-wide grant comes back with nothing identifying it:

```json
{ "id": "…", "type": "domain", "role": "reader", "email": null, "displayName": null }
```

Rendered, that reads as `null:reader`.

## Why it matters

`list_permissions` exists to answer "who can see this". For the grant that is on **ever

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/42) · 2026-08-16 · closed · 0 comments

### A domain or group grant can be seen but never revoked

## What's wrong

`unshare_doc` matches permissions by email:

```ts
const perm = (await listPermissions(clients, fileId)).find((p) => p.email === email);
```

A `type: domain` or `type: group` permission has no `emailAddress`, so it can never match. `share_doc(role: "none")` is not an escape hatch either — `setLinkAccess` only ever touches `type === 'anyone'`.

| permission type | can the surface revoke it? |
|---|---|
| `user` | yes, `unshare_doc` |
| `anyone` (link) | yes, `share_doc(role: "no

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/41) · 2026-08-16 · closed · 0 comments

### Table styling (column widths, header shading, borders) is invisible on read and can't round-trip

## The goal

A table's column widths and header shading — and its borders and padding —
survive in the document but vanish the moment you read it. You cannot see them,
preserve them while rewriting, or reproduce a table you already have.

Live: a table built with 140pt/70pt columns, grey header shading, a 2pt red
border, 12pt left padding and pinned header rows reads back as

```
| H1 | H2 |
| --- | --- |
| a | b |
```

Identical to a plain table.

## Correction to docs/limitations.md

That page

[Read the thread](https://github.com/dasasian/gdocs-mcp/issues/33) · 2026-08-16 · closed · 0 comments

[See all 20 reports Pod holds for gdocs-mcp](/mcp/gdocs-mcp/issues) — of 37 qualified upstream.

## Firsthand observations

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## For agents

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