Create a membership

This guide explains how to create a membership with the Google Chat API. When creating a membership, if the specified member has their auto-accept policy turned off, then they're invited, and must accept the space invitation before joining. Otherwise, creating a membership adds the member directly to the specified space.

Prerequisites

Python

Python 3.6 or greater
The pip package management tool
The Google client libraries for Python. To install them, run the following command in your command-line interface:
```
pip3 install --upgrade google-api-python-client google-auth-httplib2 google-auth-oauthlib oauth2client
```
A published Chat app. To create and publish a Chat app, see Build a Google Chat app.
Authorization configured for the Chat app. Creating a membership requires User authentication with the chat.memberships or chat.memberships.app authorization scope.

Create a membership for a user in a space

To create a membership for a human user in a space, pass the following in your request:

Specify the chat.memberships authorization scope.
Call the create method on the Member resource.
Set parent to the resource name of the space in which to create membership.
Set member to users/{user} where {user} is the person that you want to create membership for, and is either:
- The ID for the person in the People API. For example, if the People API person resourceName is people/123456789, then set membership.member.name to users/123456789.
- The ID for the user in the Directory API.

The following example creates membership for a human user in a space:

Python

In your working directory, create a file named chat_membership_user_create.py.

Include the following code in chat_membership_user_create.py:

import os.path

from google.auth.transport.requests import Request
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

# Define your app's authorization scopes.
# When modifying these scopes, delete the file token.json, if it exists.
SCOPES = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.memberships"]

def main():
    '''
    Authenticates with Chat API via user credentials,
    then adds a user to a Chat space by creating a membership.
    '''

    # Authenticate with Google Workspace
    # and get user authorization.
    flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
                'client_secrets.json', SCOPES)
    creds = flow.run_local_server()

    # Build a service endpoint for Chat API.
    chat = build('chat', 'v1', credentials=creds)

    # Use the service endpoint to call Chat API.
    result = chat.spaces().members().create(

        # The space in which to create a membership.
        parent = 'spaces/SPACE',

        # Specify which user the membership is for.
        body = {
          'member': {
            'name':'users/USER',
            'type': 'HUMAN'
          }
        }

    ).execute()

    # Prints details about the created membership.
    print(result)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

In the code, replace the following:
- SPACE: a space name, which you can obtain from the spaces.list method in the Chat API, or from a space's URL.
- USER: a user ID.
In your working directory, build and run the sample:
```
python3 chat_membership_user_create.py
```

The Chat API returns an instance of Member that details the membership that was created.

Create a membership for the Chat app calling the API

A Chat app can't add another app as a member to a space. To create membership for a Chat app in a space or a direct message between two human users, pass the following in your request:

Specify the chat.memberships.app authorization scope.
Call the create method on the Member resource.
Set parent to the resource name of the space in which to create membership.
Set member to users/app; an alias that represents the app calling the Chat API.

The following example creates a membership for a Chat app in a space:

Python

In your working directory, create a file named chat_membership_app_create.py.

Include the following code in chat_membership_app_create.py:

import os.path

from google.auth.transport.requests import Request
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

# Define your app's authorization scopes.
# When modifying these scopes, delete the file token.json, if it exists.
SCOPES = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.memberships.app"]

def main():
    '''
    Authenticates with Chat API via user credentials,
    then adds the Chat app to a Chat space.
    '''

    # Authenticate with Google Workspace
    # and get user authorization.
    flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
                'client_secrets.json', SCOPES)
    creds = flow.run_local_server()

    # Build a service endpoint for Chat API.
    chat = build('chat', 'v1', credentials=creds)

    # Use the service endpoint to call Chat API.
    result = chat.spaces().members().create(

        # The space in which to create a membership.
        parent = 'spaces/SPACE',

        # Set the Chat app as the entity that gets added to the space.
        # 'app' is an alias for the Chat app calling the API.
        body = {
            'member': {
              'name':'users/app',
              'type': 'BOT'
            }
        }

    ).execute()

    # Prints details about the created membership.
    print(result)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

In the code, replace SPACE with a space name, which you can obtain from the spaces.list method in the Chat API, or from a space's URL.
In your working directory, build and run the sample:
```
python3 chat_membership_app_create.py
```