Desktop Liberation focuses on technical tutorials, open-source tools, and practical code snippets designed for developers working with cloud APIs, office productivity software, and web development and features well over 1,000 articles.

A major theme is Google Apps Script (GAS) and Google Cloud, covering everything from beginner-friendly guides to advanced techniques like emulating GAS environments locally on Node.js, running serverless workloads on GitHub Actions, and managing OAuth2 authentication.

Alongside Google-centric topics, the site offers extensive resources on cross-platform development, including transitioning legacy Excel VBA code to JavaScript, integrating Microsoft APIs (such as OneDrive and Office 365), and implementing modern web frameworks and database abstractions using tools like React, Redux, Node.js, GraphQL, Redis, and Firebase.

Additionally, the content frequently explores emerging developer workflows, such as combining local and hosted LLMs for cost-effective AI automation, managing Kubernetes infrastructure, and building custom developer utilities.

All code here is unprotected and free to re-use

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To support my site, and if you find the material useful, you can buy my Google Apps Script and VBA titles published by O'Reilly media and Manning publications.

I maintain hundreds of github repositories with much of the code referenced on this site and elsewhere. If you find any of it useful, consider sponsoring my open source work.

Most Recent Articles

bigquery gas-fakes

Google Apps Script with BigQuery and gas-fakes

This article explores how gas-fakes transforms Google Apps Script (GAS) into a high-performance development platform by enabling native execution on Node, effectively bypassing the platform's standard six-minute execution limits. It specifically highlights the native integration of BigQuery, allowing developers to query massive datasets—such as the Gassypedia community database—directly from a local environment using familiar GAS syntax. Additionally, the piece demonstrates how AI agents can leverage these integrations to automate complex Workspace tasks through natural language prompts creating a scalable "lingua franca" for multi-cloud automation ...
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infographic

Gassypedia Update: The State of Public Apps Script (August 2026)

The Google Apps Script community is undergoing a remarkable expansion, effectively doubling its reach in just two years to become a thriving pillar of the GitHub landscape . By analyzing millions of repositories and well over a billion files, researchers have uncovered a massive ecosystem that now supports more than ...
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vm self healing

From Kubernetes to a Self-Healing, Low-Cost Infrastructure

I've been running a background project on Kubernetes for a while now. It's not a project that needs 100% uptime, and neither is it one I wanted to spend a lot of time managing or even checking up on, so Kubernetes with Spot VM's seemed the most cost effective solution, ...
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local llm

Combining local and hosted llm to minimize token cost

Minimize AI token cost by using a hosted LLm (eg Gemini) as a strategic planner and a local model (eg Gemma) as the executor. As an open source developer, my work is voluntary and unpaid, and therefore have to balance the potential token cost at my own personal expense, versus ...
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gas-fakes modernization

Bringing Apps Script to the desktop – the why, where and how of gas-fakes

A brief summary on approaching parity of Google Apps Script methods and classes, some of the 'extras' gas-fakes provides for platform variety, production, development and testing and glimpse of some of the techniques used to get there. Introduction: The Challenge of the Scripting Layer Google Apps Script (GAS) is a ...
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gas-fakes serve

Local Apps Script Webapp and UI Emulation with gas-fakes

gas-fakes provides a powerful emulation layer that allows GAS projects to run on Node.js as if they were native. The latest feature release takes this a step further by introducing comprehensive Local Web Development capabilities, allowing you to build and test Web Apps and UI Add-ons entirely on your local ...
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gf_agent

From Words to Workspace: High-Fidelity Automation with gf_agent and gas-fakes

**`gf_agent`** provides **no-code Google Workspace automation** by converting natural language prompts into precise, locally executed actions. By using the **`gas-fakes`** emulation layer, it ensures these tasks run with **complete parity** to the live Google environment, relying on a foundation of over a thousand routine tests and condensed documentation to maintain ...
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unbound

Add your own agent skills to gf_agent

The gf_agent is a specialized natural language automation agent designed for the Gemini CLI and its built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. By understanding the full range of gas-fakes services—which emulates Google Apps Script (GAS) on Node.js—it allows users to automate Workspace tasks using natural language prompts directly from the ...
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gf_agent

gas-fakes agent: local natural language requests against workspace resources

gf_agent is an interactive automation agent designed for the Gemini CLI that enables users to execute Google Workspace tasks locally. By leveraging the gas-fakes framework, it allows for seamless automation of tasks like managing spreadsheets, emails, and calendars directly from a local environment using natural language. Advantages for developers and ...
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scriptdb is back

Resurrecting ScriptDb – nosql database for Apps Script

**scriptdb-redux** is a modern resurrection of the original Google Apps Script **ScriptDb** service, offering a simple, document-oriented **NoSQL database** for permanently storing JavaScript objects. This **drop-in replacement** maintains full compatibility with the classic API—including functions like `save`, `load`, and `query`—while leveraging **Upstash Redis** as a high-performance persistent store. Designed for ...
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Apps Script JDBC service on Node with gas-fakes

Apps Script JDBC service on Node with gas-fakes

gas-fakes emulates the Google Apps Script environment locally, allowing developers to transition between local Node.js development and live execution This article addresses JDBC connectivity issues, as the native Apps Script driver often rejects modern connection strings that include unsupported SSL or tunneling parameters gas-fakes CLI tool automates the normalization of ...
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github actions

Run native apps script on Github actions with workload identity federation and gas-fakes

GitHub Actions: The New Serverless Frontier for Google Apps Script Google Apps Script (GAS) has traditionally been limited to its native editor and runtime environment, but recent developments in the gas-fakes ecosystem have transformed GitHub Actions into a powerful serverless platform for running native GAS workloads. By leveraging the @mcpher/gas-fakes ...
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gassypedia

Gassypedia: The State of Public Apps Script: A Two-Year Retrospective

This month marks the second anniversary of tracking the public presence of Google Apps Script (GAS) on GitHub through Gassypedia. By monitoring repositories and manifests over the last two years, we have gained unprecedented insight into how developers are using the platform and how the community has evolved. The Scale ...
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gas-fakes and msgraph

Yes – you can execute native Apps Script with Office 365 back end

gas-fakes emulates the Google Apps Script (GAS) environment natively within a Node.js runtime. By translating standard GAS service calls into granular API requests, it provides a high-fidelity, local sandbox for debugging, automated testing, and execution without the constraints of the Google Cloud IDE. Microsoft as an Apps Script backend Apps ...
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All about workload identity: Running Node anywhere with Containers

All about workload identity: Running Node anywhere with Containers

This article explains how to break the "6-minute wall" by running Google Apps Script logic in Node.js containers across platforms like AWS, Azure, and Fly.io using the @mcpher/gas-fakes library. By implementing Workload Identity Federation (WIF), developers can achieve secure, keyless authentication that allows external clouds to impersonate Google Service Accounts ...
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My YouTube Channel

My Publications

  • Going GAS Video

    Going GAS Video

    An accelerated video course over about 8 hours and 70 lessons taking you through JavaScript and Apps Script from start to finish. [...]
  • Going GAS Book

    Going GAS Book

    For those who prefer book and eBook formats, a 450+ page deep dive into Apps Script. Especially useful for those transitioning from another platform. [...]
  • Live Project

    Live Project

    Create, Implement and test a AI Powered Google Workspace Add-Ons. add functionality from a collection of Google Cloud APIs such as Cloud Storage, CardService, Drive and others [...]

Google developers expert program

The Google Developers Experts (GDE) Program is a community of outstanding professionals, developers, and thought leaders. Experts share their expertise and passion with other developers and tech communities.

My GDE profile - member since 2014

Support my research and site

Discover More Content

The most geeky things

  • Promises in VBA

    Using promises in JavaScript and other languages is the preferred way to orchestrate the completion of asynchronous activities. Here’s a (not perfect but fun) Promise implementation in VBA. Example includes getting data from Google Fusion [...]

  • React, Redux, Redis, Material-UI and Firebase

    A whole bunch of front end platform libraries that go together really well, but that are hard to grasp and get started with. Here’s a bunch of snippets to help show how all these things [...]

  • Color Fiesta

    The mathematics of color is a complex and interesting topic. Here you’ll find Google Apps Script, VBA and javascript examples of color manipulation including finding the closest match to a given color in a defined [...]

  • Automatic documentation

    Automating document ,creating Google Visualization and static tables of VBA projects, serialize instances of VBA classes and generating Google Apps Script skeleton of VBA projects. […] Share with your network
Book : Going Gas
Going Gas book

Whether you’re moving from Microsoft Office to Google Docs or simply want to learn how to automate Docs with Google Apps Script, this practical guide shows you by example how to work with each of the major Apps Script services. The book introduces JavaScript basics for experienced developers unfamiliar with the language, and demonstrates ways to build real-world apps using all of the Apps Script services previously covered.

Video: Apps Script for developers

In this Google Apps Script for Developers training course, expert author Bruce Mcpherson will teach you how to customize, enhance, and automate your Google Docs, Sheets, and Gmail with Google Apps Script. This course is designed for the absolute beginner, meaning no previous experience with Google Apps Script is required.

Once you have completed this computer based training course, you will have learned how to customize, enhance, and automate your Docs, Sheets, and Gmail with Google Apps Script.

Video: Apps Script for beginners

The key to using Google Apps Script is understanding its underlying language – JavaScript. The course teaches you enough of the concepts and syntax of JavaScript that you’ll come away with the ability to confidently code Google Apps Script tasks on your own.

Live Book
Manning liveproject create ai powered Google Workspace Add-ons

create, implement and test a Workspace Add-on

add functionality from a collection of Google Cloud APIs such as Cloud Storage, CardService, Drive and others

organize extracted data from a variety of documents using the Google AI Platform 

Manning LiveProject

bruce mcpherson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://www.mcpher.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at code use guidelines