Honest Drive

Local Google Drive MCP server with full permission management — the piece missing from the official connector.

Companion project to honest-gmail-mcp and honest-calendar-mcp.

Why

The official Anthropic Drive connector is competent for read + create, but has one big gap: it cannot set or modify sharing permissions. If you build a workflow like "create a folder for my accountant and share it with her", you hit a dead end — you have to jump into the Drive UI to do the sharing part manually.

This MCP fixes that. Same trust model as the rest of the honest-* family: data flows only between your machine and Google.

Features

Eight tools exposed over MCP:

• list_files — search with Drive query syntax
• get_file — full metadata
• read_file — download content (text/JSON returned as UTF-8; binaries as base64; Google-native docs auto-exported to plain text / CSV)
• create_file — upload from text or base64
• create_folder — new folder, optionally inside a parent
• share_file — grant access to an email (reader/commenter/writer/owner), notification optional, custom message supported ← the piece missing elsewhere
• list_permissions — see who has access and with what role
• remove_permission — revoke a specific permission by id

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• A Google account
• One-time Google Cloud OAuth setup (~10 min; can reuse the client from honest-gmail-mcp — just enable the Drive API on the same project)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/bartosz-kuc/honest-drive-mcp.git
cd honest-drive-mcp
python3 -m venv venv
./venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

On Windows use venv\Scripts\pip and venv\Scripts\python instead of the venv/bin/... paths shown throughout this README.

Google Cloud steps (same as honest-gmail-mcp):

1. https://console.cloud.google.com/ → create or select project
2. APIs & Services → Library → enable Google Drive API
3. APIs & Services → Credentials → OAuth client ID → Desktop app → download JSON → save as credentials.json here

Authorize (one-time OAuth):

./venv/bin/python -c "import server; server.get_service()"

Browser opens → Allow → token saved to token.json (or DRIVE_TOKEN_PATH). If you skip this step, the server starts the same flow on the first tool call. Running server.py on its own does not start OAuth — it waits for an MCP client on stdin.

Register with Claude Code:

claude mcp add drive-personal /absolute/path/to/venv/bin/python /absolute/path/to/server.py

Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "drive-personal": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Configuration (optional)

By default credentials.json and token.json are read from (and the token written to) the directory containing server.py. Two env vars override this, e.g. for one instance per Google account, or when installed from PyPI (pip/uvx), where that directory is the package's install location:

Env var	Default	Purpose
DRIVE_CREDENTIALS_PATH	credentials.json next to server.py	OAuth client file
DRIVE_TOKEN_PATH	token.json next to server.py	OAuth token file (written after browser consent on the first tool call; its directory must exist)

Use absolute paths, e.g. in claude_desktop_config.json:

"env": {
  "DRIVE_CREDENTIALS_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/credentials.json",
  "DRIVE_TOKEN_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/token.json"
}

Example usage

"Create a folder called 'Faktury dla księgowej' in My Drive and share it with [email protected] as writer."

AI calls create_folder → gets folder_id → calls share_file(file_id, "[email protected]", role="writer"). Done in one shot. No context-switch to the Drive UI.

"Who has access to file X?"

AI calls list_permissions(file_id) → returns all permissions with ids you can pass to remove_permission later.

Data flow

Your AI client
     ↕  MCP stdio
This server (Python, on your machine)
     ↕  HTTPS
Google Drive API

No cloud middle. Tokens stay on disk, .gitignored.

Security notes

• OAuth scope requested: drive (full read/write on all Drive files this account can access). Google does not offer a scope that includes permission management without also including read/write to files, which is why the scope is broad.
• send_notification defaults to false — AI will not spam recipients unless explicitly asked.
• role: "owner" transfers ownership — an irreversible action. The tool passes transferOwnership: true automatically when this role is requested; consider using writer unless you really mean to hand over the file.
• Revoke access anytime at https://myaccount.google.com/permissions.
• credentials.json and token.json are .gitignored.

Author

Bartosz Kuć — Warsaw-based developer, JDG owner running skanfirmy.pl.

• Site: https://skanfirmy.pl

• GitHub: https://github.com/bartosz-kuc

• Email: [email protected]

Consulting

Available for consulting on Polish tax and business integrations (KSeF, GUS/NFZ/GIOŚ APIs, mBank data), MCP server design, and AI-assisted tooling for JDGs and small teams. See skanfirmy.pl/uslugi for productized packages (audit 3k PLN, setup 8-15k PLN, retainer 2-4k PLN/mo), or reach out via email.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Related

• honest-gmail-mcp — local Gmail MCP
• honest-calendar-mcp — local Google Calendar MCP
• honest-nip-krs-mcp — Polish company registry MCP (biała lista + KRS)