Google Chat

Connect it

You need a Google Workspace account, the kind a school or a company gives you: a personal Gmail can't make Chat apps. In Conch, open Apps, choose Talk to me here, then Google Chat.

1. Turn on the Google Chat API. In Google Cloud, make a project (or choose one) and press Enable on the Google Chat API.
2. Give Conch a service account's key. In IAM & Admin → Service accounts, make one (it needs no roles), then Keys → Add key → Create new key → JSON. Choose the file it downloads on Conch's page, or paste what's in it. Conch checks it with Google.
3. Give it an address Google Chat can reach. Google Chat delivers messages to a web address, so Conch opens one, with one press.
4. Make the Chat app. On the Google Chat API's Configuration page, give it a name, tick Receive 1:1 messages and Join spaces and group conversations, choose HTTP endpoint URL and paste the address Conch shows, with HTTP endpoint URL as the authentication audience. Make it visible to yourself and press Save.
5. Say hello. In Google Chat, press New chat, find the app by its name, and send it anything. Then press That's me in Conch.

Your first hello

Once Conch knows it's you, the app greets you by name.

Good to know

• Every message is checked: Google signs what it delivers, for this channel's own address, and Conch reads nothing else.
• The key stays here. Conch uses the service account's key to answer as the app, and sends it nowhere: only the short-lived tokens Google trades it for go to Google Chat.
• Approvals come with numbered answers: reply with the number. Conch reads your reply back from Google Chat itself, so only you can answer.
• Files you send in Google Chat aren't taken yet.
• In a space, add the app. When someone mentions it, the space shows on its page in Conch, off. Turn it on there, and it answers whoever mentions it: you as in private, everyone else in words only. See In a group.
• A key that stops working (deleted in Google Cloud) stops this channel only. Add a new key and paste it.