A roster of go-to commands for the Google Cloud CLI, the primary command-line
tool for Google Cloud.
(Also included:
introductory primer
,
understanding commands
, and a
printable PDF
.)
Cheat sheet
Getting started
Get going with the gcloud CLI.
Help
gcloud CLI is happy to help.
gcloud help
: Search the gcloud CLI reference documents for specific
terms.
gcloud feedback
: Provide feedback to the gcloud CLI team.
gcloud topic
: Supplementary help material for non-command topics like
accessibility, filtering, and formatting.
Personalization
Make the gcloud CLI your own; personalize your configuration with properties.
Authorization and Credentials
Grant and revoke authorization to the gcloud CLI and manage
credentials.
Projects
Manage project access policies.
IAM
Configuring Identity and Access Management (IAM) preferences and service
accounts.
Docker & Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
Manage containerized applications on Kubernetes.
Virtual Machines & Compute Engine
Create, run, and manage VMs on Google Cloud infrastructure.
Serverless & App Engine
Build highly scalable applications on a fully managed serverless platform
Miscellaneous
Commands that might come in handy
Introductory primer
A quick primer for getting started with the gcloud CLI.
Installing the Google Cloud CLI
Install the Google Cloud CLI with these
installation instructions
.
Flags, arguments, and other wondrous additions
Arguments can be positional arguments or flags:
Global flags
Some flags are available throughout the gcloud CLI experience,
like:
--help
: For when in
doubt; display detailed help for a command.
--project
: If
using a project other than the current one.
--quiet
: Disabling
interactive prompting (and applying default values for inputs).
--verbosity
:
Can set verbosity levels at
debug
,
info
,
warning
,
error
,
critical
,
and
none
.
--version
:
Display
gcloud
version information.
--format
: Set
output format as
config
,
csv
,
default
,
diff
,
disable
,
flattened
,
get
,
json
,
list
,
multi
,
none
,
object
,
table
,
text
,
value
,
or
yaml
.
Cleaning up results
Get the most from your output with the
filter
,
format
, limit, and sort-by flags.
For Compute Engine instances with prefix
us
and not machine type
f1-micro
:
gcloud compute instances list --filter="zone ~ ^us AND -machineType:f1-micro"
For a list of projects created on or after 15 January 2018, sorted from oldest
to newest, presented as a table with project number, project id and creation
time columns with dates and times in local timezone:
gcloud projects list --format="table(projectNumber,projectId,createTime.date(tz=LOCAL))"
--filter="createTime>=2018-01-15T12:00:00" --sort-by=createTime
For a list of ten Compute Engine instances with a label
my-label
(of any value):
gcloud compute instances list --filter="labels.my-label:*" --limit=10
Understanding commands
The underlying patterns for gcloud CLI commands; to aid
self-discovery of commands.
Finding gcloud CLI commands
The gcloud CLI is a tree; non-leaf nodes are command groups
and leaf nodes are commands.
(Also, tab completion works for commands and resources!)
Most
gcloud
commands follow the following format:
gcloud + release level (optional) + component + entity + operation + positional args + flags
For example:
gcloud + compute + instances + create + example-instance-1 + --zone=us-central1-a
Release level
Release Level
refers to the command’s release status.
Example:
alpha
for alpha commands,
beta
for beta commands, no release level needed for GA commands.
Component
Component
refers to the different Google Cloud services.
Example:
compute
for Compute Engine,
app
for App Engine, etc.
Entity
Entity
refers to the plural form of an element or collection of elements under a component.
Example:
disks
,
firewalls
,
images
,
instances
,
regions
,
zones
for compute
Operation
Operation
refers to the imperative verb form of the operation to be performed on the entity.
Example:
Common operations are
describe
,
list
,
create/update
,
delete/clear
,
import
,
export
,
copy
,
remove
,
add
,
reset
,
restart
,
restore
,
run
, and
deploy
.
Positional args
Positional args
refer to the required, order-specific arguments needed to
execute the command.
Example:
<INSTANCE_NAMES>
is the required positional argument for
gcloud compute instances create
.
Flags
Flags
refer to the additional arguments,
--flag-name(=value)
, passed in to
the command after positional args.
Example:
--machine-type=<MACHINE_TYPE>
and
--preemptible
are optional
flags for
gcloud compute instances create
.