gcloud-cloud-shell

name	gcloud-cloud-shell
description	Cloud Shell via gcloud (`gcloud cloud-shell`). Manage Google Cloud Shell.

gcloud cloud-shell — Cloud Shell

Overview

Google Cloud Shell is a browser-accessible, ephemeral Debian-based Linux VM with pre-installed tools (gcloud CLI, Docker, Git, editors, language runtimes) and 5 GB of persistent home-directory storage per user. The gcloud cloud-shell command group lets you drive that environment from your local machine: open an interactive SSH session, run remote commands, copy files in either direction, and mount your Cloud Shell $HOME over sshfs. Reach for it when you want your local terminal and file system to interoperate with the same Cloud Shell environment you get in the Console.

Quick reference — common workflows

1. Open an interactive SSH session

# Start an interactive Cloud Shell session (starts the VM if it is not running)
gcloud cloud-shell ssh

# Authorize the session so gcloud/gsutil work immediately without re-auth
gcloud cloud-shell ssh --authorize-session

2. Run a remote command non-interactively

# Run a single command in Cloud Shell and exit
gcloud cloud-shell ssh --command=ls

# Preview the underlying ssh command without executing it
gcloud cloud-shell ssh --command="gcloud version" --dry-run

3. Copy files from Cloud Shell to your local machine

# Copy a single file from Cloud Shell home to a local directory
gcloud cloud-shell scp cloudshell:~/remote-file.txt localhost:~/Downloads/

# Copy a directory recursively from Cloud Shell to local
gcloud cloud-shell scp --recurse cloudshell:~/my-project localhost:~/projects/

4. Copy files from your local machine into Cloud Shell

# Copy one or more local files into the Cloud Shell home directory
gcloud cloud-shell scp localhost:~/local-file-1.txt localhost:~/local-file-2.txt cloudshell:~/

# Preview the scp command without executing it
gcloud cloud-shell scp localhost:~/file.txt cloudshell:~/ --dry-run

5. Mount the Cloud Shell home directory via sshfs

# Print the sshfs command that mounts Cloud Shell $HOME onto a local mount point
gcloud cloud-shell get-mount-command ~/cloudshell-mount

# Run the printed command to mount (you must install and run sshfs yourself).
# Changes under the mount point are reflected in Cloud Shell and vice-versa.

6. Use a custom SSH key file

# SSH using a specific key file instead of ~/.ssh/google_compute_engine
gcloud cloud-shell ssh --ssh-key-file=~/.ssh/my_cloud_shell_key

# Regenerate and overwrite a broken SSH key without prompting
gcloud cloud-shell ssh --force-key-file-overwrite

Command groups

This service has no subgroups — all commands are top-level.

Group	Reference file	Commands	Description
(top-level)	_commands.md	get-mount-command, scp, ssh	SSH into, copy files to/from, and mount your Cloud Shell environment

See index.md for a one-line index of all 3 commands.

Common flags & tips

• Endpoint prefixes for scp: every source/destination must be prefixed with cloudshell: (remote) or localhost: (local) — e.g. cloudshell:~/FILE vs localhost:~/FILE. Multiple sources are allowed before the single destination.
• --dry-run (on ssh and scp): prints the command that would be run to stdout instead of executing it — useful for inspecting the generated ssh/scp invocation.
• --authorize-session (on ssh): pushes OAuth credentials into the running session so Google Cloud command-line tools work without a separate manual login.
• --recurse (on scp): uploads directories recursively.
• SSH keys: --ssh-key-file overrides the default key (~/.ssh/google_compute_engine); --force-key-file-overwrite regenerates a broken key without confirmation in both interactive and non-interactive environments.
• Pass-through flags: --ssh-flag=SSH_FLAG (on ssh) and --scp-flag=SCP_FLAG (on scp) forward extra flags to the underlying ssh(1)/scp(1); both may be repeated. On Windows the transfer uses pscp.
• Auto-start: ssh and get-mount-command will start your Cloud Shell VM if it is not already running.
• No regional/zonal flags: Cloud Shell is a per-user managed environment, so there are no --region/--zone arguments on these commands.

beta / alpha

The same three commands (ssh, scp, get-mount-command) exist identically under gcloud beta cloud-shell and gcloud alpha cloud-shell. No additional commands or flags are exclusive to the beta or alpha channels. (Note: the unrelated legacy gcloud alpha shell was renamed to gcloud alpha interactive and is not part of this group.)

Official documentation

• Cloud Shell documentation home — product guides, reference, and resources.
• gcloud cloud-shell command reference — full reference for ssh, scp, and get-mount-command.
• Using Cloud Shell — terminal, editor, storage modes, and web preview.
• How Cloud Shell works — architecture: per-user VMs, Docker container, 5 GB persistent $HOME.
• Run gcloud commands with Cloud Shell — quickstart for running gcloud in Cloud Shell.
• Cloud Shell limitations — quotas and limits (50 hr/week, 12 hr max session, 40 min inactivity timeout).
• Cloud Shell REST API reference — cloudshell.googleapis.com API (enable with gcloud services enable cloudshell.googleapis.com for programmatic access).