GWS Chat Rapid

Manage Google Chat spaces, memberships, and message history with rapid command-line operations.

When to Use This Command

Run this command when you need to:

• List, create, or configure Google Chat spaces and their settings from the terminal
• Manage space memberships by adding, removing, or updating member roles
• Search through message history or export chat data for compliance and archival

Consider alternatives when:

• You only need to send a single message which is faster with the chat-send command
• You need real-time chat interaction which requires the Google Chat application

Quick Start

Configuration

Copy
name: gws-chat-rapid
type: command
category: google-workspace

Example Invocation

Copy
claude command:run gws-chat-rapid --action list-spaces --filter "type=ROOM"

Example Output

Fetching Google Chat spaces...
  Filter: type=ROOM
  Domain: example.com

Spaces found: 8

  Name                    Members  Type   Created
  Engineering             24       ROOM   2025-08-12
  Design Team             12       ROOM   2025-09-03
  DevOps Alerts           18       ROOM   2025-10-15
  Product Updates          9       ROOM   2025-11-22
  Security Incidents       6       ROOM   2026-01-08
  Customer Feedback       15       ROOM   2026-02-01
  Sprint Planning          8       ROOM   2026-02-14
  All Hands                45      ROOM   2024-06-30

Total members across rooms: 137

Core Concepts

Chat Management Overview

Aspect	Details
Spaces	Create, list, update, and delete Chat spaces (rooms and group DMs)
Members	Add, remove, and manage member roles within spaces
Messages	Search, list, and export message history for compliance
Reactions	Manage emoji reactions on messages programmatically
Metadata	Access space settings, description, guidelines, and history visibility

Space Management Workflow

List Existing Spaces
        |
        v
Select or Create Space
  |              |
  v              v
Configure      Create New
Settings       Space
  |              |
  v              v
Manage Members
  |    |    |
  v    v    v
Add  Remove Update
  |    |    Role
  v    v    |
Verify Memberships
        |
        v
Monitor Activity

Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
action	string	(required)	Operation: list-spaces, create-space, members, messages, search
filter	string	(none)	Filter expression for listing: type, name, or date
space	string	(none)	Target space ID for member or message operations
role	string	member	Role for member operations: member, manager, owner
export	string	(none)	Export format and path for message history: json, csv

Best Practices

1. Organize spaces by function - Create separate spaces for alerts, discussions, and announcements. Mixing automated alerts with human conversations makes both harder to follow.

2. Audit memberships regularly - Run periodic membership checks to remove departed employees and contractors who no longer need access to internal communication channels.

3. Export chat history before archiving - Before deleting or archiving a space, export the full message history. Chat data cannot be recovered once a space is deleted.

4. Set space guidelines - Configure the space description and posting guidelines so members understand the purpose and expected behavior in each space.

Common Issues

1. Cannot create spaces without Chat API enabled - Ensure the Google Chat API is enabled in your Google Cloud project and the service account has the chat.spaces scope.

2. Member add fails with user not found - The user must have a Google Workspace or consumer Google account. External users may need to be invited via their email first.

3. Message search returns limited results - Chat message search has pagination limits. Use date filters to narrow the search window and iterate through pages for comprehensive results. Combine text search terms with space filters for more targeted results.