gcloud-cli

name	gcloud-cli
description	Use the Google Cloud CLI (gcloud) to manage GCP projects, compute instances, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, GCS, and BigQuery. Use this instead of the Google Cloud MCP server.

Google Cloud CLI (gcloud)

Official CLI for Google Cloud Platform. Manage all GCP services from the terminal.

• Official repo: https://github.com/google-cloud-sdk/google-cloud-sdk
• Docs: https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs

Authentication

gcloud auth login                      # Browser-based login
gcloud auth application-default login  # Set up ADC for libraries
gcloud auth list                       # List authenticated accounts
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID   # Set active project
gcloud config list                     # Show current config

Common Commands

Projects

gcloud projects list
gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

Compute Engine

gcloud compute instances list
gcloud compute instances create my-vm --machine-type=e2-medium --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances start my-vm --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances stop my-vm --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute ssh my-vm --zone=us-central1-a

Cloud Run

gcloud run deploy my-service --source . --region us-central1
gcloud run services list
gcloud run services describe my-service --region us-central1
gcloud run services logs read my-service --region us-central1

Cloud Functions

gcloud functions deploy my-func --runtime nodejs20 --trigger-http --entry-point handler
gcloud functions list
gcloud functions logs read my-func
gcloud functions call my-func --data '{"key":"value"}'

Cloud Storage

gcloud storage ls
gcloud storage cp file.txt gs://my-bucket/
gcloud storage cp gs://my-bucket/file.txt ./
gcloud storage rm gs://my-bucket/file.txt

BigQuery

bq ls                                    # List datasets
bq query --use_legacy_sql=false 'SELECT * FROM dataset.table LIMIT 10'
bq show dataset.table

Agent Best Practices

• Use --format=json for machine-readable output
• Use --quiet to suppress interactive prompts
• Always check gcloud config list to confirm active project
• Use --project=PROJECT_ID flag to target specific projects without switching context
• Use gcloud services enable SERVICE to enable APIs before using them
• Filter with --filter flag: gcloud compute instances list --filter="status=RUNNING"

Example Workflows

Deploy to Cloud Run

gcloud run deploy my-app --source . --region us-central1 --allow-unauthenticated --quiet

Get all running VMs

gcloud compute instances list --filter="status=RUNNING" --format="json" | jq '.[].name'