google-drive-helper

name

google-drive-helper

description

Navigate Shaw's Google Drive (aibuilder.academy workspace) — search, read file contents, navigate known folders, and avoid the connector's quirks. Use whenever Shaw asks to find a file in Drive, read a Google Doc/Sheet/Slide/PDF, look in a specific folder, pull form responses, locate something he uploaded, or do anything Drive-adjacent. Triggers include "find X in my drive", "what's in the forms folder", "read this doc", "pull the responses for X", "is X in my drive", "search drive for X", "do I have a file about X". Even casual mentions like "where's that proposal I wrote", "the spreadsheet I made last week", or "look in Drive" should fire this skill. Also trigger when Shaw shares a Drive URL and asks to read it. Do NOT use for file *organization* (moving, renaming, batch operations).

Google Drive Helper

Reference for navigating Shaw's Google Drive — finding files, reading contents, and avoiding the connector's footguns. Load it, then act based on the request.

Workspace

The Drive connector is wired to Shaw's aibuilder.academy account only (the ABA business workspace). Files owned by other accounts (Shaw's personal Gmail, clients, collaborators) only surface when they've been explicitly shared into the aibuilder.academy workspace — those show up in search with sharedWithMeTime populated. There's no way to list arbitrary contents of folders owned by other accounts; only individually shared files are reachable.

When linking back to Shaw, use the viewUrl returned by the API. Don't hand-rewrite URLs.

Known Folders

Hardcoded folder IDs Shaw uses regularly. When asked about content in any of these, search by parentId = directly instead of doing a fuzzy title search.

Folder	ID	What's inside
forms	1nExDY6bLRQWq73TfX1ihZpQsPDqsbRrD	Google Forms (intake, testimonial, feedback, etc.). Some entries are shortcuts to Forms shared in from elsewhere.
sheets	1hMTTUsNov7u3gfrP6Y1N50IplfpxFZpC	Linked response sheets for the forms above.
Meet Recordings	14fmJnjIU0Dj5xL9trSxOJe_vUTdhQOyV	Google Meet auto-saved call transcripts (Google Docs). Named [Name or Company] / Shaw - [Type] (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM GMT) - Transcript. Only present for meetings Shaw organized; unscheduled instant meetings show a meeting code (e.g. gdm-ytcq-wzh) instead of a name.
agents	1jyO_4Z95-KY8_XfYqGNMHCdzFItqTm3B	Handoff / research-brief docs prepared for downstream agents and content work (e.g. brainstorm + research handoffs synthesized from Notion, transcripts, and CRM). Plain Google Docs, named [Topic] Handoff — [Detail].

When Shaw says "the forms folder" or "my response sheets," use the IDs above directly.

Tool Cheatsheet

Need	Tool
Find files by query	search_files (Drive query syntax)
Recently touched	list_recent_files
File metadata only	get_file_metadata
Read content as text	read_file_content
Download as bytes (base64)	download_file_content
Permissions	get_file_permissions
Create new file	create_file
Copy file	copy_file

Connector Quirks (have actually bitten)

1. mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.form' returns nothing. The mimeType filter doesn't work for Forms specifically. Fall back to title-based search (title contains 'form' or title contains 'intake' or ...) or filter by the known forms folder's parentId.
2. Forms can't be read or downloaded. read_file_content rejects Forms ("unsupported mime type") and download_file_content errors internally. To see form questions or responses, open the linked response sheet in the sheets folder.
3. No deep-link to individual form responses. Without a Forms-specific MCP, the per-respondent edit URL isn't reachable — only the form's #responses summary URL. Tell Shaw this and offer the response-sheet row instead.
4. Shortcuts vs. files. The forms folder contains both real Forms (application/vnd.google-apps.form) and shortcuts (application/vnd.google-apps.shortcut). Shortcuts point to files shared into the workspace from elsewhere. When listing, surface both; when reading, resolve to the target ID first.
5. Title search is case-insensitive but returned titles preserve case. Don't echo a casing different from the file's actual name.
6. Files that aren't shared in aren't reachable. If a folder's parentId lookup returns empty but you saw the folder ID in metadata earlier, it's likely owned by another account and only individual files are shared — not the whole folder. Stop and tell Shaw rather than guessing.
7. create_file only auto-converts plain text into a native Google Doc. When the goal is an editable Google Doc (not a raw file sitting in Drive), upload the body as contentMimeType: 'text/plain' — Drive converts text/plain → application/vnd.google-apps.document and text/csv → Sheets. Uploading text/markdown or text/html does not convert: you get a raw .md/.html file with the markup left literal, even though you'd expect Drive to render it. So when Shaw wants a clean Doc, flatten the content to plain text rather than passing Markdown/HTML. Confirm by checking the mimeType on the returned object — application/vnd.google-apps.document means it converted; anything else means it's a raw file. (Conversely, when the file should stay a real .md/.html — e.g. uploading an actual skill or code file — pass its native contentMimeType with disableConversionToGoogleType: true so it isn't turned into a Doc.)
8. There's no delete, trash, move, or in-place-update tool. The connector can create, copy, and read, but a botched create_file can't be cleaned up programmatically — it leaves an orphan in Drive. This is why the format matters on the first call (quirk #7): get it right rather than iterating. If duplicates do get created, tell Shaw to trash them manually instead of trying to fix it through the connector.

Search Query Syntax

search_files uses Drive's query language. Combine clauses with and, or, not, parentheses. String values must be single-quoted.

Clause	Example
Title contains	title contains 'invoice'
Title exact	title = 'My Doc'
MIME type	mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet' (works for most types — not Forms; see Quirks)
Folder	parentId = '<folder_id>' — use 'root' for top-level My Drive
Fulltext	fullText contains 'OAuth' (matches title or body)
Owner	owner = 'me' or owner = '[e-mail]'
Shared	sharedWithMe = true
Date	modifiedTime > '2025-01-01T00:00:00Z'

When the mimeType filter misbehaves, batch keyword variants: title contains 'form' or title contains 'survey' or title contains 'intake' or title contains 'feedback' or title contains 'application'

Common Workflows

"Find me X" (general lookup)

1. If Shaw names a known folder (forms, sheets), go straight to parentId = — don't fuzzy search the whole Drive.
2. Otherwise: title-based search first. Add fullText contains as a fallback if title hits nothing.
3. Return 5-10 hits. If >25, narrow before returning everything.

"What does X say?" (read content)

1. Try read_file_content first — handles Docs, Sheets, Slides, PDFs, Office formats.
2. If the connector rejects the mime type (Forms, video, audio, images), use download_file_content for bytes. For Forms specifically, jump to the linked response sheet instead.
3. Quote sparingly. Don't dump full files.

"Pull responses for the X form"

1. Look in the sheets folder for a sheet whose title is <form name> (Responses).
2. read_file_content on the sheet — questions are columns, responses are rows.
3. The form itself can't be read directly; the response sheet is the canonical source.

"Where's that file I [made / shared / opened] last week?"

list_recent_files with orderBy: 'lastModifiedByMe' or 'recency'. Faster than searching.

"What's in the [folder name] folder?"

• Known folder → use the hardcoded ID.
• Unknown folder → title = '<folder name>' and mimeType = 'application/vnd.google-apps.folder' to find the folder ID, then parentId = '<id>'.
• If parentId = returns empty for a folder that should have contents, the folder is likely owned by another account and not actually accessible — flag this to Shaw.

"Find the transcript for a call"

Google Meet drops call transcripts into the Meet Recordings folder (see Known Folders). This is the retrieval primitive other skills reuse — notion-helper's transcript-linking workflow calls it. Keep this skill's job to finding the file; linking it onto a Notion page is notion-helper's job.

Given a name and a date (the caller supplies them — e.g. from an ABA Calls / ABA Trainings page):

1. Anchor to the folder: parentId = '14fmJnjIU0Dj5xL9trSxOJe_vUTdhQOyV'.
2. Filter by name and/or day. Scheduled calls carry the attendee/company name in the title, so title contains '<name>' is the strongest signal. Combine with the call date via createdTime (a transcript is written seconds after the meeting ends, so createdTime is essentially the meeting time): parentId = '14fm...' and title contains '<name>' and createdTime > '2026-05-24T00:00:00Z' and createdTime < '2026-05-25T00:00:00Z'
3. Return the match(es) with viewUrl. If more than one comes back for the same day, hand the disambiguation to the caller (it has the Calendar event's exact start time) rather than guessing here.

Edge cases: transcripts only exist for meetings Shaw organized, and unscheduled instant meetings are named by meeting code (e.g. gdm-ytcq-wzh) instead of a person — a name search won't catch those, so fall back to date.

"Save this to Drive" / create a doc or file

Decide the destination format first, because the upload mime type drives the outcome (quirk #7):

1. A clean, editable Google Doc (handoffs, briefs, notes Shaw will read/edit in Drive): flatten the content to plain text and pass contentMimeType: 'text/plain'. Use plain-text structure (CAPS headers, indentation, dashes) — Markdown/HTML symbols would otherwise show up literally. Confirm the returned mimeType is application/vnd.google-apps.document.
2. The actual file, preserved as-is (a skill's SKILL.md, code, a real .md/.csv): pass the native contentMimeType (e.g. text/markdown) with disableConversionToGoogleType: true so Drive keeps the bytes instead of converting to a Doc.
3. Set parentId to drop it in a known folder; omit it to land in My Drive root.
4. There's no undo (quirk #8) — get the format right on the first call rather than creating, checking, and re-creating.

Linking Back to Shaw

When sharing a file:

• Google native (Doc/Sheet/Slide): use the viewUrl from the API.
• Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/<id>/edit — append #responses to land on the responses tab.
• Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/<id>

Always copy the URL the API returns; don't hand-craft.

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If a question hits a quirk not listed here (new error, unexpected mime type behavior), surface it to Shaw rather than guessing. The connector is undocumented in places.