Google Drive

Botonom asks Google for one narrow permission: access to the files it created itself, plus any file you explicitly open with Botonom. Nothing else in your Drive is visible to it.

In practice:

• Files the agent put there are fully available. It can search them, read them, describe them, share them.
• Folders this skill created stay visible to it, which is how the same folder tree gets found and reused every month instead of a new "Botonom (1)" appearing beside the old one.
• Everything else in your Drive is invisible. A contract a colleague uploaded by hand last year will not appear in a search, and will not open even if you paste its exact file id.

That last point is the permission working, not a fault and not a broken connection. When a search comes back empty the agent says so in those words rather than pretending the file does not exist.

If reading your existing Drive is the reason you wanted this, say so to support rather than working around it. In the meantime, a file you open with Botonom once becomes reachable from then on.

Install the skill on the agent that should handle files, then connect Google from the skill's settings. You sign in once and approve Drive access when asked.

A few things worth knowing:

• You connect Google once. The connection belongs to the company, and it is the same one Google Sheets and Google Analytics use. Approving Drive here does not disturb the permissions those already have.
• An owner or admin should do it, because the connection is used by every agent you later give this skill to.
• The connection refreshes itself. You are not asked to sign in again on every use.
• You can disconnect at any time from your connection settings, and access stops immediately.

Then there are three settings on the skill itself:

• Google access - the connection above
• Copy new files to Drive - the automatic filing, on by default
• Root folder - the name everything is filed under, Botonom unless you change it

Press Test when you are done. It tells you which account is connected and whether the root folder is in place.

With Copy new files to Drive on, every file that lands in Botonom is handed to the agent, which uploads it into Root folder / agent name / year-month /.

Two things about how this works are worth your attention:

• The agent does it with a tool, in a short run of its own. It is not a hidden background thread, so the upload appears in the agent's activity like any other action, obeys the same permissions you granted, and fails loudly instead of silently. It also means the copy is a normal (small) piece of agent work rather than something free and invisible.
• The destination is worked out from the file's own timestamp, not from the clock at the moment of upload. A file that gets retried tomorrow still lands in the month it belongs to instead of scattering across two folders.

Turn the setting off if you want the tools without the automatic copy. The agent can still upload on request.

Making a file reachable by anyone holding a link is the one action here you cannot really take back: once a link is out, you no longer control who opened it or what they kept.

So it carries its own approval step on top of permissions. The agent comes back with the file name and what the link would allow, and the link is only created after a person agrees. A general "sure, go ahead" earlier in the conversation is not enough; the approval has to belong to that file.

Sharing is also a separate capability, so a workspace can allow an agent to file and read documents while never allowing it to publish one.

Every tool here is limited to signed-in workspace members from staff level upward. Someone chatting with a public agent can never reach your company's Drive through it.

Beyond that, the skill's capabilities are off until they are granted in Roles & Access. Reading is one decision, uploading is another, and sharing outside the company is a third.

Two boundaries built into the tools themselves:

• Uploads accept only a file already shared in this workspace, or text the agent wrote itself. An arbitrary web address is refused, because accepting one would let anything on the internet be laundered into your company's Drive through the agent.
• Anything read out of Drive comes back labelled as information, not instructions. A document can contain text that tells an agent what to do next; the agent is told to report it, never to obey it.

"Google Drive is not connected" - the skill is installed but no Google connection is attached, or the connection does not carry Drive access. An owner or admin connects it from the skill settings.

"The Google connection is no longer valid" - the connection was revoked or expired on Google's side. Reconnect and approve Drive again.

"The connection does not carry Drive access" - Google is connected, but Drive was not approved when you were asked. Reconnect and tick it this time.

A search finds nothing you know is there - almost always the access level, not a failure. See What the agent can see, and what it cannot above. Open the file with Botonom once and it becomes findable from then on.

"... cannot be read as text" - Google Docs come back as plain text and Google Sheets as CSV. Slides, Forms and drawings have no text form, so the agent describes them instead of reading them.

A file did not upload - uploads are capped at 25 MB. Reads return up to 512 KB of text, and the reply says when it was cut.

"Google is rate limiting this workspace" - too many requests at once. Waiting a moment and asking again is the whole fix.

"The Drive API is not enabled on the Google project" - that one is on our side, not yours. Send it to support and it is a configuration change, not something you can fix from your account.