From gcpcliskills
Comprehensive gcloud CLI command reference for 120+ Google Cloud (GCP) services — Compute Engine, GKE/Kubernetes, Cloud Storage, IAM, Cloud SQL, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, Pub/Sub, BigQuery, Spanner, Firestore, networking, KMS, Secret Manager, logging, monitoring, and many more. Every GA command is documented with its exhaustive flags, value types, choices, defaults, and examples, plus gcloud conventions (--format, --filter, --project, auth, config, output). Use this skill whenever the user works with Google Cloud via the command line: creating, listing, describing, updating, or deleting any GCP resource; writing or debugging gcloud scripts; authenticating or configuring gcloud; or asking how to accomplish something in GCP with the CLI. Trigger even when the user says only 'GCP' or 'Google Cloud', names a product (GKE, Cloud Run, BigQuery, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, etc.), or pastes a `gcloud` command, without explicitly saying 'gcloud'.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/gcpcliskills:gcloud-cliThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Complete `gcloud` command reference covering **121 Google Cloud services** and **5090 GA commands**. Every command is documented from the gcloud CLI's own help system (version-pinned, official) with full flags, value types, choices, defaults, synopses, and examples.
README.mdreferences/access-approval/index.mdreferences/access-approval/overview.mdreferences/access-approval/requests.mdreferences/access-approval/service-account.mdreferences/access-approval/settings.mdreferences/access-approval/sources.mdreferences/access-context-manager/authorized-orgs.mdreferences/access-context-manager/cloud-bindings.mdreferences/access-context-manager/index.mdreferences/access-context-manager/levels.mdreferences/access-context-manager/overview.mdreferences/access-context-manager/perimeters.mdreferences/access-context-manager/policies.mdreferences/access-context-manager/sources.mdreferences/access-context-manager/supported-services.mdreferences/active-directory/domains.mdreferences/active-directory/index.mdreferences/active-directory/operations.mdreferences/active-directory/overview.mdComplete gcloud command reference covering 121 Google Cloud services and 5090 GA commands. Every command is documented from the gcloud CLI's own help system (version-pinned, official) with full flags, value types, choices, defaults, synopses, and examples.
overview.md — it has the common workflows, a command-group map, service-specific tips, and links to the official Google documentation the content was sourced from.references/compute/instances.md) or scan index.md for the one-line command list.Start by reading the overview.md for the service you need.
| Service | Reference | Scope | Official docs |
|---|---|---|---|
access-approval | access-approval/overview.md | manage Access Approval requests and settings — requests, service-account, settings | docs · ref |
access-context-manager | access-context-manager/overview.md | manage Access Context Manager resources — authorized-orgs, cloud-bindings, levels, perimeters, policies, supported-services | docs · ref |
active-directory | active-directory/overview.md | manage Managed Microsoft AD resources — domains, operations, peerings | docs · ref |
ai | ai/overview.md | manage entities in Vertex AI — custom-jobs, endpoints, hp-tuning-jobs, index-endpoints, indexes, model-garden, model-monitoring-jobs, models | docs · ref |
ai-platform | ai-platform/overview.md | manage AI Platform jobs and models — jobs, local, models, operations, versions | docs · ref |
alloydb | alloydb/overview.md | create and manage AlloyDB databases — backups, clusters, instances, operations, users | docs · ref |
anthos | anthos/overview.md | anthos command Group — auth, config | docs · ref |
api-gateway | api-gateway/overview.md | manage Cloud API Gateway resources — api-configs, apis, gateways, operations | docs · ref |
apigee | apigee/overview.md | manage Apigee resources — apis, applications, deployments, developers, environments, organizations, products | docs · ref |
app | app/overview.md | manage your App Engine deployments — domain-mappings, firewall-rules, instances, logs, operations, regions, runtimes, services | docs · ref |
apphub | apphub/overview.md | manage App Hub resources — applications, boundary, discovered-services, discovered-workloads, locations, operations, service-projects | docs · ref |
artifacts | artifacts/overview.md | manage Artifact Registry resources — apt, attachments, docker, files, generic, go, locations, operations | docs · ref |
asset | asset/overview.md | manage the Cloud Asset Inventory — feeds, operations, saved-queries | docs · ref |
assured | assured/overview.md | read and manipulate Assured Workloads data controls — operations, workloads | docs · ref |
audit-manager | audit-manager/overview.md | enroll resources, audit workloads and generate reports — audit-reports, audit-scopes, enrollments, operations | docs · ref |
auth | auth/overview.md | manage oauth2 credentials for the Google Cloud CLI — application-default, enterprise-certificate-config | docs · ref |
backup-dr | backup-dr/overview.md | manage Backup and DR resources — backup-plan-associations, backup-plan-revisions, backup-plans, backup-vaults, backups, data-source-references, data-sources, locations | docs · ref |
batch | batch/overview.md | manage Batch resources — jobs, tasks | docs · ref |
beyondcorp | beyondcorp/overview.md | manage Beyondcorp resources — operations, security-gateways | docs · ref |
bigtable | bigtable/overview.md | manage your Cloud Bigtable storage — app-profiles, authorized-views, backups, clusters, hot-tablets, instances, logical-views, materialized-views | docs · ref |
billing | billing/overview.md | manage billing accounts and associate them with projects — accounts, budgets, projects | docs · ref |
bms | bms/overview.md | manage Bare Metal Solution resources — instances, networks, nfs-shares, operations, os-images, ssh-keys, volumes | docs · ref |
bq | bq/overview.md | manage Bq resources — migration-workflows | docs · ref |
builds | builds/overview.md | create and manage builds for Google Cloud Build — connections, repositories, triggers, worker-pools | docs · ref |
certificate-manager | certificate-manager/overview.md | manage SSL certificates for your Google Cloud projects — certificates, dns-authorizations, issuance-configs, maps, operations, trust-configs | docs · ref |
cloud-shell | cloud-shell/overview.md | manage Google Cloud Shell | docs · ref |
cloudlocationfinder | cloudlocationfinder/overview.md | manage Cloudlocationfinder resources — cloud-locations | docs · ref |
colab | colab/overview.md | manage Colab Enterprise resources — executions, runtime-templates, runtimes, schedules | docs · ref |
compliance-manager | compliance-manager/overview.md | manage Compliance Manager resources — cloud-control-deployments, cloud-controls, framework-deployments, frameworks, operations | docs · ref |
components | components/overview.md | list, install, update, or remove Google Cloud CLI components — repositories | docs · ref |
composer | composer/overview.md | create and manage Cloud Composer Environments — environments, operations | docs · ref |
compute | compute/overview.md | create and manipulate Compute Engine resources — accelerator-types, addresses, advice, backend-buckets, backend-services, commitments, diagnose, disk-types | docs · ref |
config | config/overview.md | view and edit Google Cloud CLI properties — configurations | docs · ref |
container | container/overview.md | deploy and manage clusters of machines for running containers — ai, attached, aws, azure, bare-metal, binauthz, clusters, fleet | docs · ref |
data-catalog | data-catalog/overview.md | manage Data Catalog resources — entries, entry-groups, tag-templates, tags, taxonomies | docs · ref |
database-migration | database-migration/overview.md | manage Database Migration Service resources — connection-profiles, conversion-workspaces, migration-jobs, objects, operations, private-connections | docs · ref |
dataflow | dataflow/overview.md | manage Google Cloud Dataflow resources — flex-template, jobs, snapshots, yaml | docs · ref |
dataplex | dataplex/overview.md | manage Dataplex resources — aspect-types, assets, content, datascans, encryption-config, entries, entry-groups, entry-types | docs · ref |
dataproc | dataproc/overview.md | create and manage Google Cloud Dataproc clusters and jobs — autoscaling-policies, batches, clusters, jobs, node-groups, operations, workflow-templates | docs · ref |
datastore | datastore/overview.md | manage your Cloud Datastore resources — indexes, operations | docs · ref |
datastream | datastream/overview.md | manage Cloud Datastream resources — connection-profiles, locations, objects, operations, private-connections, routes, streams | docs · ref |
deploy | deploy/overview.md | create and manage Cloud Deploy resources — automation-runs, automations, custom-target-types, delivery-pipelines, deploy-policies, job-runs, releases, rollouts | docs · ref |
deployment-manager | deployment-manager/overview.md | manage deployments of cloud resources — deployments, manifests, operations, resources, types | docs · ref |
design-center | design-center/overview.md | manage Application Design Center resources — locations, operations, spaces | docs · ref |
developer-connect | developer-connect/overview.md | manage Developer Connect resources — connections, insights-configs, operations | docs · ref |
dns | dns/overview.md | manage your Cloud DNS managed-zones and record-sets — dns-keys, managed-zones, operations, policies, project-info, record-sets, response-policies | docs · ref |
domains | domains/overview.md | manage domains for your Google Cloud projects — registrations | docs · ref |
edge-cache | edge-cache/overview.md | manage Media CDN resources — keysets, operations, origins, services | docs · ref |
edge-cloud | edge-cloud/overview.md | manage edge-cloud resources — container, networking | docs · ref |
emulators | emulators/overview.md | set up your local development environment using emulators — firestore, spanner | docs · ref |
endpoints | endpoints/overview.md | create, enable and manage API services — configs, operations, services | docs · ref |
essential-contacts | essential-contacts/overview.md | manage Essential Contacts | docs · ref |
eventarc | eventarc/overview.md | manage Eventarc resources — audit-logs-provider, channel-connections, channels, enrollments, google-api-sources, google-channels, locations, message-buses | docs · ref |
filestore | filestore/overview.md | create and manipulate Filestore resources — backups, instances, locations, operations, regions, zones | docs · ref |
firebase | firebase/overview.md | work with Google Firebase — test | docs · ref |
firestore | firestore/overview.md | manage your Cloud Firestore resources — backups, databases, fields, indexes, locations, operations, user-creds | docs · ref |
functions | functions/overview.md | manage Google Cloud Functions — event-types, logs, regions, runtimes | docs · ref |
gemini | gemini/overview.md | manage resources associated with Gemini Code Assist and Gemini Cloud Assist — code-repository-indexes, code-tools-settings, data-sharing-with-google-settings, gemini-gcp-enablement-settings, logging-settings, operations, release-channel-settings | docs · ref |
healthcare | healthcare/overview.md | manage Cloud Healthcare resources — consent-stores, datasets, dicom-stores, fhir-stores, hl7v2-stores, operations | docs · ref |
iam | iam/overview.md | manage IAM service accounts and keys — oauth-clients, policies, policy-bindings, principal-access-boundary-policies, roles, service-accounts, simulator, workforce-pools | docs · ref |
iap | iap/overview.md | manage IAP policies — oauth-brands, oauth-clients, settings, tcp, web | docs · ref |
identity | identity/overview.md | manage Cloud Identity Groups and Memberships resources | docs · ref |
ids | ids/overview.md | manage Cloud IDS — endpoints | docs · ref |
immersive-stream | immersive-stream/overview.md | manage Immersive Stream resources — xr | docs · ref |
infra-manager | infra-manager/overview.md | manage Infra Manager resources — automigrationconfig, deployments, previews, resource-changes, resource-drifts, resources, revisions, terraform-versions | docs · ref |
kms | kms/overview.md | manage cryptographic keys in the cloud — autokey-config, ekm-config, ekm-connections, import-jobs, inventory, key-handles, keyrings, keys | docs · ref |
logging | logging/overview.md | manage Cloud Logging — buckets, links, locations, logs, metrics, operations, resource-descriptors, scopes | docs · ref |
looker | looker/overview.md | manage Looker resources — backups, instances, operations, regions | docs · ref |
lustre | lustre/overview.md | manage Lustre resources — instances, operations | docs · ref |
managed-kafka | managed-kafka/overview.md | administer Managed Service for Apache Kafka clusters, topics, and consumer groups — acls, clusters, connect-clusters, connectors, consumer-groups, operations, topics | docs · ref |
memcache | memcache/overview.md | manage Cloud Memorystore Memcached resources — instances, operations, regions | docs · ref |
memorystore | memorystore/overview.md | manage Memorystore resources — backup-collections, instances, locations, operations | docs · ref |
metastore | metastore/overview.md | manage Dataproc Metastore resources — federations, locations, operations, services | docs · ref |
migration | migration/overview.md | the root group for various Cloud Migration teams — vms | docs · ref |
ml | ml/overview.md | use Google Cloud machine learning capabilities — language, speech, video, vision | docs · ref |
model-armor | model-armor/overview.md | model Armor is a service offering LLM-agnostic security and AI safety measures to mitigate risks associated with large language models (LLMs) — floorsettings, templates | ref |
monitoring | monitoring/overview.md | manage Cloud Monitoring dashboards — dashboards, policies, snoozes, uptime | docs · ref |
netapp | netapp/overview.md | create and manipulate Cloud NetApp Files resources — active-directories, backup-policies, backup-vaults, host-groups, kms-configs, locations, operations, storage-pools | docs · ref |
network-connectivity | network-connectivity/overview.md | manage Network Connectivity resources — hubs, internal-ranges, locations, multicloud-data-transfer-configs, multicloud-data-transfer-supported-services, operations, policy-based-routes, regional-endpoints | docs · ref |
network-management | network-management/overview.md | manage Network Management resources — connectivity-tests, operations, vpc-flow-logs-configs | docs · ref |
network-security | network-security/overview.md | manage Network Security resources — address-groups, authorization-policies, authz-policies, backend-authentication-configs, client-tls-policies, dns-threat-detectors, firewall-endpoint-associations, firewall-endpoints | docs · ref |
network-services | network-services/overview.md | manage Network Services resources — endpoint-policies, gateways, grpc-routes, http-routes, meshes, multicast-consumer-associations, multicast-domain-activations, multicast-domain-groups | docs · ref |
notebooks | notebooks/overview.md | notebooks Command Group — environments, instances, locations, runtimes | docs · ref |
observability | observability/overview.md | manage Observability resources — scopes | docs · ref |
oracle-database | oracle-database/overview.md | manage Oracle Database resources — autonomous-database-backups, autonomous-database-character-sets, autonomous-databases, autonomous-db-versions, cloud-exadata-infrastructures, cloud-vm-clusters, database-character-sets, databases | docs · ref |
org-policies | org-policies/overview.md | create and manage Organization Policies | docs · ref |
organizations | organizations/overview.md | create and manage Google Cloud Platform Organizations | docs · ref |
pam | pam/overview.md | manage Privileged Access Manager entitlements and grants — entitlements, grants, operations | docs · ref |
parametermanager | parametermanager/overview.md | parameter Manager is a single source of truth to store, access and manage the lifecycle of your application parameters | docs · ref |
policy-intelligence | policy-intelligence/overview.md | a platform to help better understand, use, and manage policies at scale — simulate, troubleshoot-policy | docs · ref |
policy-troubleshoot | policy-troubleshoot/overview.md | troubleshoot Google Cloud Platform policies | docs · ref |
privateca | privateca/overview.md | manage private Certificate Authorities on Google Cloud — certificates, locations, pools, roots, subordinates, templates | docs · ref |
projects | projects/overview.md | create and manage project access policies | docs · ref |
publicca | publicca/overview.md | manage accounts for Google Trust Services' Certificate Authority — external-account-keys | docs · ref |
pubsub | pubsub/overview.md | manage Cloud Pub/Sub topics, subscriptions, and snapshots — lite-operations, lite-reservations, lite-subscriptions, lite-topics, message-transforms, schemas, snapshots, subscriptions | docs · ref |
recaptcha | recaptcha/overview.md | manage reCAPTCHA Enterprise Keys — firewall-policies, keys | docs · ref |
recommender | recommender/overview.md | manage Cloud recommendations and recommendation rules — insight-type-config, insights, recommendations, recommender-config | docs · ref |
redis | redis/overview.md | manage Cloud Memorystore Redis resources — clusters, instances, operations, regions, zones | docs · ref |
resource-manager | resource-manager/overview.md | manage Cloud Resources — capabilities, folders, org-policies, tags | docs · ref |
run | run/overview.md | manage your Cloud Run applications — domain-mappings, jobs, multi-region-services, regions, revisions, services | docs · ref |
scc | scc/overview.md | manage Cloud SCC resources — assets, bqexports, custom-modules, findings, iac-validation-reports, manage, muteconfigs, notifications | docs · ref |
scheduler | scheduler/overview.md | manage Cloud Scheduler jobs and schedules — cmek-config, jobs, locations, operations | docs · ref |
secrets | secrets/overview.md | manage secrets on Google Cloud — locations, replication, versions | docs · ref |
service-directory | service-directory/overview.md | command groups for Service Directory — endpoints, locations, namespaces, services | docs · ref |
service-extensions | service-extensions/overview.md | manage Service Extensions resources — authz-extensions, lb-edge-extensions, lb-route-extensions, lb-traffic-extensions, wasm-plugin-versions, wasm-plugins | docs · ref |
services | services/overview.md | list, enable and disable APIs and services — api-keys, operations, peered-dns-domains, vpc-peerings | docs · ref |
source | source/overview.md | cloud git repository commands — project-configs, repos | docs · ref |
source-manager | source-manager/overview.md | manage Secure Source Manager resources — instances, locations, operations, repos | docs · ref |
spanner | spanner/overview.md | command groups for Cloud Spanner — backup-schedules, backups, databases, instance-configs, instance-partitions, instances, operations, rows | docs · ref |
sql | sql/overview.md | create and manage Google Cloud SQL databases — backups, databases, export, flags, import, instances, operations, ssl | docs · ref |
storage | storage/overview.md | create and manage Cloud Storage buckets and objects — batch-operations, buckets, folders, hmac, insights, intelligence-configs, managed-folders, objects | docs · ref |
tasks | tasks/overview.md | manage Cloud Tasks queues and tasks — cmek-config, locations, queues | docs · ref |
telco-automation | telco-automation/overview.md | manage Telco Automation resources — operations, orchestration-cluster | docs · ref |
topic | topic/overview.md | gcloud supplementary help | docs · ref |
transcoder | transcoder/overview.md | manage Transcoder jobs and job templates — jobs, templates | docs · ref |
transfer | transfer/overview.md | manage Transfer Service jobs, operations, and agents — agent-pools, agents, jobs, operations | docs · ref |
vmware | vmware/overview.md | manage Google Cloud VMware Engine resources — announcements, datastores, dns-bind-permission, locations, network-peerings, network-policies, networks, node-types | docs · ref |
workbench | workbench/overview.md | workbench Command Group — instances | docs · ref |
workflows | workflows/overview.md | manage your Cloud Workflows resources — executions | docs · ref |
workspace-add-ons | workspace-add-ons/overview.md | manage Google Workspace Add-ons resources — deployments | docs · ref |
workstations | workstations/overview.md | manage Cloud Workstations resources — clusters, configs | docs · ref |
Release tracks: this reference covers GA commands. Many services also expose additional commands under
gcloud beta <service>andgcloud alpha <service>; each service overview notes where important capabilities are beta/alpha-only.
These manage the CLI itself rather than cloud resources:
gcloud init — interactive first-time setup (auth + default project/region).gcloud auth — manage credentials. See auth/overview.md.gcloud config — view/set CLI properties (project, region, zone, account). See config/overview.md.gcloud components — install/update/remove CLI components. See components/overview.md.gcloud info — show CLI environment/diagnostics. gcloud version — show component versions.These behaviors apply across every gcloud command. (Run gcloud topic <name> locally for
the authoritative deep-dive on any of these — e.g. gcloud topic formats, gcloud topic filters.)
--project=PROJECT_ID Override the active project for this command
--account=ACCOUNT Use a specific authenticated account
--impersonate-service-account=SA Run as a service account via short-lived credentials
--billing-project=PROJECT_ID Project to bill/quota for user-project-enabled APIs
--configuration=NAME Use a named gcloud configuration
--format=FORMAT Output format (see below)
--filter=EXPRESSION Client-side resource filtering (see below)
--sort-by=FIELDS Sort list output by resource fields (e.g. --sort-by=~creationTimestamp)
--limit=N Max resources to list
--page-size=N Server page size for list calls
--quiet, -q Disable interactive prompts; accept defaults (use in scripts)
--verbosity=LEVEL debug|info|warning|error|critical (default warning)
--flags-file=YAML Read flags from a YAML file
--flatten=KEY Flatten a repeated/nested field into separate records
--log-http Log raw HTTP requests/responses (debugging)
--user-output-enabled=false Suppress normal output (keep --format output)
--help Full help for the command
--format)By default gcloud pretty-prints. Override with --format:
gcloud compute instances list --format=json # full JSON (machine-readable)
gcloud compute instances list --format=yaml # YAML
gcloud compute instances list --format=text # flat key: value lines (great for discovering field names)
gcloud compute instances list --format='table(name, zone, status)' # custom table columns
gcloud compute instances list --format='value(name)' # bare values, one per line (scripting)
gcloud compute instances list --format='csv(name,zone,status)' # CSV
value(...) is the scripting workhorse — no headers, tab/newline separated:
for i in $(gcloud compute instances list --format='value(name)'); do echo "$i"; done
--format=text or --format=json on a single resource:
gcloud compute instances list --limit=1 --format=text
--format='table(name, creationTimestamp.date())'.--filter)Client-side selection of listed resources. Combine with AND, OR, NOT, parentheses.
gcloud compute instances list --filter="machineType:f1-micro" # field contains
gcloud compute instances list --filter="zone ~ us" # regex match (~)
gcloud compute instances list --filter="status=RUNNING" # equality
gcloud compute instances list --filter="tags.items=(web,prod)" # any of
gcloud compute instances list --filter="tags.items=web AND -status=TERMINATED"
gcloud compute instances list --filter="creationTimestamp>2024-01-01"
Operators: : (contains/has-key), =/!=, </<=/>/>=, ~/!~ (regex). --filter is
applied by the client after retrieval; some commands also support a server-side filter flag.
gcloud config set project MY_PROJECT # default project for all commands
gcloud config set compute/region us-central1 # default region
gcloud config set compute/zone us-central1-a # default zone
gcloud config list # show active config
gcloud config configurations create staging # named config (switch with --configuration or activate)
gcloud config configurations activate staging
Precedence: explicit --project/--region/--zone flag → active configuration property →
environment variable (CLOUDSDK_CORE_PROJECT, CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_REGION, …).
gcloud auth login # user login (browser)
gcloud auth list # show credentialed accounts; * marks active
gcloud auth application-default login # set up Application Default Credentials (ADC) for client libraries/Terraform
gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=key.json # authenticate as a service account
gcloud auth print-access-token # short-lived OAuth token (e.g. for curl)
Prefer [email protected] over downloading
service-account keys when possible.
Most services require their API to be enabled on the project first:
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com
gcloud services list --enabled
Each service overview.md notes the API to enable.
set -euo pipefail
PROJECT=$(gcloud config get-value project)
gcloud ... --quiet --format='value(...)' # no prompts, parseable output
gcloud exits non-zero on error — check $? or rely on set -e.--quiet to auto-confirm destructive operations in automation.--async (return immediately with an operation) and have a
matching operations subgroup or --wait/wait command to poll for completion.The same command often exists on multiple tracks:
gcloud compute instances create ... # GA (documented in this skill)
gcloud beta compute instances create ... # beta: newer features, may change
gcloud alpha compute instances create ... # alpha: earliest, may change/break
This skill documents the GA surface. When a capability is beta/alpha-only, the service
overview says so; prepend beta or alpha to the command (install the component if prompted).
All command and flag data is generated directly from the gcloud CLI's own help system (gcloud <command> --help, the canonical source Google publishes at cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference), pinned to the installed SDK version. Per-service conceptual docs, quickstarts, and how-to guides are linked from each service's overview.md and sources.md (official cloud.google.com sources only).
Guides creation, editing, and verification of skills for AI coding agents using test-driven development with subagent scenarios. Use when authoring or debugging skills.
npx claudepluginhub chrishuffman5/gcpcliskills --plugin gcpcliskills