What if you could say “create a Q1 sales presentation with 5 slides” and have a polished Google Slides deck appear in your Drive? Or “build a budget tracker with conditional formatting” and get a fully formatted spreadsheet?
This is exactly what the Google Productivity Skill does. It’s an open-source knowledge file that any AI coding agent can read to learn how to automate the entire Google Workspace suite — Slides, Sheets, Docs, Drive, and Forms — through natural language.
What Is a Skill?#
A skill is a structured knowledge file (SKILL.md) that gives an AI coding agent the context it needs to perform a specific task. Think of it as a comprehensive reference manual that the agent reads before generating code. The skill contains:
- API reference documentation
- Working code examples
- Pre-built themes and templates
- Best practices and error handling patterns
- Project structure conventions
The agent reads the skill file, understands the available APIs and patterns, then generates the exact Python code needed to accomplish your request — complete with authentication, error handling, and proper formatting.
Works with Any AI Coding Agent#
While this skill was originally built for Snowflake Cortex Code, the skill file format is agent-agnostic. Any AI coding agent that supports reading context files can use it:
| Agent | How to Use the Skill |
|---|---|
| Cortex Code (CoCo) | Place SKILL.md in your project — CoCo reads it automatically |
| Claude Code | Place SKILL.md in your project root or reference it in CLAUDE.md |
| Cursor | Add SKILL.md to your project — Cursor indexes it as context |
| Continue.dev | Reference in .continuerules or place in project root |
| Windsurf | Place in project root — picked up as workspace context |
| Any agent with file context | Point the agent to SKILL.md before making requests |
The skill is ~2,800 lines of structured knowledge — API endpoints, authentication patterns, theme definitions, and complete working examples for every Google Workspace API.
What You Can Automate#
Presentations (Google Slides)#
"Create a professional presentation about Q1 results with 5 slides"
"Add a comparison table slide comparing AWS vs Azure vs GCP"
"Insert a bar chart showing quarterly revenue data"The skill includes pre-built themes (Corporate Clean, Technical Dark, Modern Light) so your presentations look professional out of the box.
Spreadsheets (Google Sheets)#
"Create a budget tracking spreadsheet with monthly columns"
"Add conditional formatting to highlight cells over $10,000 in red"
"Read data from the Sales sheet and create a summary"Documents (Google Docs)#
"Create a technical specification document for our REST API"
"Generate meeting notes template with attendees, agenda, action items"
"Write a project proposal from these bullet points..."Forms (Google Forms)#
"Create a customer satisfaction survey with 5 rating questions"
"Build a quiz about product fundamentals with 10 multiple choice questions"
"Create an event registration form collecting name, email, and dietary preferences"Drive (File Management)#
"List all presentations shared with me"
"Upload this CSV to the Reports folder"
"Share the Q1 deck with the marketing team"Architecture#
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Your AI Coding Agent │
│ (Cortex Code, Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) │
│ │
│ "Create a presentation about data architecture" │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌──────────────────┐ │
│ │ SKILL.md │ API reference │
│ │ (~2800 lines) │ Themes & templates │
│ │ │ Working examples │
│ └──────────────────┘ Error patterns │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Generates Python script │
│ with Google API calls │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ pixi run python │
│ script.py │
└──────────────────────┘
│
▼ Google REST APIs
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ Google Workspace │
│ │
│ Slides Sheets Docs │
│ Drive Forms │
└──────────────────────────────┘Quick Start#
1. Prerequisites#
# Install pixi
curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | bash
# Authenticate with Google
gcloud auth application-default login
gcloud auth application-default set-quota-project your-gcp-project
# Enable the APIs
gcloud services enable \
slides.googleapis.com \
sheets.googleapis.com \
docs.googleapis.com \
drive.googleapis.com \
forms.googleapis.com \
--project=YOUR_PROJECT_ID2. Set Up Your Project#
mkdir my_presentation && cd my_presentation
pixi init --format pyproject
pixi add python=3.11
pixi add --pypi google-api-python-client google-auth google-auth-oauthlib
pixi install3. Add the Skill#
Clone or download the skill file into your project:
# Option 1: Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/sfc-gh-kkeller/google-productivity-skill.git
cp google-productivity-skill/google_productivity_skill/SKILL.md .
# Option 2: Download just the skill file
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sfc-gh-kkeller/google-productivity-skill/main/google_productivity_skill/SKILL.md -o SKILL.md4. Ask Your Agent#
Open your AI coding agent in the project directory and start prompting:
"Create a professional presentation with a title slide and 3 content slides
about our data platform architecture. Use the Corporate Clean theme."The agent reads SKILL.md, generates a Python script, and runs it. A new Google Slides presentation appears in your Drive.
Bundled Themes#
The skill includes three pre-built presentation themes with complete color palettes, font selections, and layout definitions:
| Theme | Best For |
|---|---|
| Corporate Clean | Business presentations, board decks, client-facing materials |
| Technical Dark | Engineering reviews, code walkthroughs, technical deep-dives |
| Modern Light | Product launches, marketing, clean visual storytelling |
Each theme defines background colors, title/body text styles, accent colors, and shape formatting — so the agent generates visually consistent slides without manual formatting.
The Power of the Pipeline#
The real value emerges when you chain operations. A single conversation with your agent can:
- Query your database for Q1 revenue data
- Create a spreadsheet with the data and charts
- Generate a presentation pulling from the spreadsheet
- Share it with your team via Google Drive
"Pull Q1 revenue by region from our database, create a spreadsheet with
a pivot table and charts, then generate a 10-slide executive presentation
with the key insights. Share it with the leadership team."This is the kind of workflow that takes hours manually but minutes with an AI agent that has the right skill.
Project Structure Convention#
The skill teaches the agent to organize generated scripts with numbered prefixes for clear ordering:
my_project/
├── SKILL.md # The skill knowledge file
├── pixi.toml # Dependencies
├── HISTORY.md # Change log (auto-maintained)
├── scripts/
│ ├── 001_create_presentation.py # Create base deck
│ ├── 002_add_content_slides.py # Add content
│ └── 003_add_charts.py # Add data visualizations
└── assets/
└── logo.png # Images for slidesThe HISTORY.md file tracks every operation for easy rollback — the agent maintains it automatically.
Error Handling#
The skill includes a comprehensive error handling guide so the agent can self-correct:
| Error | What the Agent Does |
|---|---|
403 "API has not been used" | Tells you to set the quota project |
403 "Permission denied" | Identifies the missing IAM role |
403 "API not enabled" | Provides the exact gcloud command to enable it |
404 "Not found" | Checks file/presentation ID and access permissions |
The agent doesn’t just fail — it diagnoses and suggests fixes.
Why Skills Beat Hardcoded Integrations#
Traditional automation requires writing custom code for each Google API endpoint, handling authentication, pagination, error retries, and formatting. A skill file replaces all of that with a single knowledge document that any AI agent can use to generate the right code on the fly.
| Traditional Approach | Skill-Based Approach |
|---|---|
| Write and maintain custom scripts | Agent generates scripts from prompts |
| Learn each Google API individually | Skill encapsulates all 5 APIs |
| Manual error handling | Agent self-diagnoses from skill patterns |
| Fixed workflows | Dynamic — any prompt, any combination |
| Tied to one language/framework | Agent adapts to your environment |
Get Started#
- View on GitHub — full source, skill file, and demo scripts
- Set up authentication with
gcloud auth application-default login - Drop
SKILL.mdinto any project - Start prompting your AI coding agent
Related#
- Nanocortex — build custom Snowflake Cortex agents
- Cortex Proxy — use any AI coding agent with Snowflake Cortex
- Building the Agentic Enterprise — why purpose-built agents outperform generic ones
