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gcloud CLI

Google Cloud Command Line Interface (gcloud CLI)

Create and manage Google Cloud resources and services directly on the command line or via scripts using the Google Cloud CLI. With broad platform compatibility and service coverage, perform common platform tasks faster and control your cloud resources at scale.

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VIDEO

What is the Google Cloud CLI?

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Benefits

Fast, scriptable orchestration

The gcloud CLI gives you a terminal command-line method to interact with the same Google Cloud services you already manage using the Cloud console. Interact via the Console and use it for scriptable automation.

Accelerates your software development

Manage development workflows like pushing files to VMs, using data emulators for local Pub/Sub, databases, or BigQuery development, and deploying code to Cloud Run functions.

Simplifies authentication

Authenticate to Google Cloud services using various simplified authentication approaches. Implement authentication flows for your client libraries code to run seamlessly locally, in staging, and production.

Key features

Key features

Orchestrate Google Cloud resources granularly and at scale

Google Cloud CLI supports over 8,000 commands to provide complete management and control over nearly all Google Cloud services and products. The CLI also provides preview command sets for early access to pre-release Google Cloud products.

Local emulators to accelerate software development

To assist with your local software development, the gcloud CLI provides data emulators for Bigtable, Cloud Datastore, Firestore, Spanner, and Pub/Sub for local development, testing, and validation. These simulate the service back ends to help you write client-side code more efficiently.

The gcloud CLI is also bundled with specialized sub-tools for working with BigQuery (the bq CLI), Cloud Storage (the gsutil CLI), and Kubernetes Clusters (the kubectl CLI) to provide precise and deep control over those respective products.

With bq, run BigQuery queries and manipulate datasets, tables, and entities. With gsutil, manage Storage buckets and objects, and with kubectl, deploy and manage Kubernetes container clusters.

Multi-platform installers, or run in web-based Cloud Shell

Supports Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows and is available across a breadth of package managers, OS installers, and as a Docker image. Alternatively, or in conjunction, you can simply launch a Cloud Shell session to access the preinstalled gcloud CLI directly in the web browser and without installing anything. 

Deploy applications to App Engine or Cloud Run functions

For various serverless products, the gcloud CLI is the primary interface by which you upload code to run and generally support your development workflow. For example, for Cloud Function, you can use the CLI to describe or trigger a function, display its log entries, or deploy updates to it.

Embedded help text and comprehensive web documentation

Use the help flag to access inline documentation or view quickstarts and how-to guides on the web. The CLI is also backed by detailed reference documentation. For some services such as Cloud Compute, the Cloud Console provides equivalent gcloud CLI commands so you can use a UI interface to build up complex command and flag combinations.

Documentation

Documentation

Tutorial

Install Google Cloud CLI

Download and initialize the latest version of Google Cloud CLI.

Tutorial

Install additional components

Download additional command-line components like bq, gsutil, kubectl, preview gcloud commands, or necessary dependencies.

Google Cloud Basics

Overview of the Google Cloud CLI

A comprehensive, high-level look at the gcloud CLI, including its release levels, command structure, and important concepts.

Tutorial

Scripting gcloud commands

Run gcloud commands from a script by utilizing features like prompt disabling and output filtering and formatting.

Quickstart

Hands-on labs: Using the gcloud CLI

Learn how to install and configure gcloud CLI, then use it to perform some basic operations like creating VMs, networks, and using gsutil to perform operations.

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Use cases

Use cases

Use case
Script gcloud CLI commands

When you script with gcloud CLI, you can run gcloud commands using scripts or other automations—for example, by using Bash scripts, or when using Jenkins to drive automation of Google Cloud tasks. Additionally, the gcloud command-line tool comes with the ability to filter and format command output to easily structure and extract information as well as combine multiple commands to manage your Google Cloud resources non-interactively.

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All features

All features

Pricing

Pricing

As part of the Google Cloud SDK, the Google Cloud CLI is available at no charge for users with a Google Cloud account.

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