Cloud SDK & gcloud CLI

The Google Cloud SDK is a set of command-line tools for managing GCP resources and services. At its core is the gcloud CLI, the primary command-line interface for interacting with Google Cloud. Mastering the gcloud CLI is essential for automating tasks, scripting deployments, and managing resources efficiently.

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What is the Cloud SDK?

The Cloud SDK is a collection of tools that includes:

Tool	Purpose
gcloud	The primary CLI for managing GCP resources (compute, networking, IAM, etc.)
gsutil	Command-line tool for working with Cloud Storage (uploading, downloading, managing buckets)
bq	Command-line tool for BigQuery (running queries, managing datasets and tables)
kubectl	Kubernetes command-line tool (included as an optional component)

The Cloud SDK is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and comes pre-installed in Cloud Shell.

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Installing the Cloud SDK

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install google-cloud-sdk

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

# Add the Cloud SDK distribution URI as a package source
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.asc] https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list

# Import the Google Cloud public key
curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/cloud.google.asc

# Update and install
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install google-cloud-cli

Windows

Download and run the installer from cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install.

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Initialising the SDK

After installation, initialise the SDK to authenticate and configure defaults:

gcloud init

This interactive command will:

1. Authenticate you with your Google account (opens a browser window)
2. Ask you to select a default project
3. Ask you to select a default region and zone

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Authentication

Interactive Login

# Authenticate with your Google account
gcloud auth login

This opens a browser window for OAuth authentication.

Application Default Credentials

# Set up application default credentials for local development
gcloud auth application-default login

This creates credentials that client libraries (Python, Java, Node.js, Go) use automatically.

Service Account Authentication

# Authenticate using a service account key file
gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=key.json

Listing Authenticated Accounts

# List all authenticated accounts
gcloud auth list

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The gcloud Command Structure

The gcloud CLI follows a consistent pattern:

gcloud <group> <subgroup> <command> --flags

For example:

# Create a Compute Engine instance
gcloud compute instances create my-vm \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --machine-type=e2-medium \
  --image-family=debian-11 \
  --image-project=debian-cloud

# List all Compute Engine instances
gcloud compute instances list

# Delete a Compute Engine instance
gcloud compute instances delete my-vm --zone=us-central1-a

Common Groups

Group	Description
gcloud compute	Manage Compute Engine (VMs, disks, networks)
gcloud container	Manage GKE clusters and workloads
gcloud storage	Manage Cloud Storage buckets and objects
gcloud sql	Manage Cloud SQL instances
gcloud functions	Manage Cloud Functions
gcloud run	Manage Cloud Run services
gcloud iam	Manage IAM roles and service accounts
gcloud projects	Manage projects
gcloud services	Enable and disable APIs

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Configuration and Properties

The gcloud CLI uses configurations to store default settings. You can have multiple configurations and switch between them.

Setting Defaults

# Set default project
gcloud config set project my-project-id