gcloud is the Google Cloud command-line interface for managing Google Cloud resources and services. In a GKE workflow, it creates or connects to a cluster and supplies credentials so kubectl can access the Kubernetes API. section 3.2.1
A practical GKE setup uses gcloud to:
- Initialize the CLI with gcloud init and select the Google Account that owns the cluster. section 3.2.1
- Install kubectl when convenient, while keeping the tools’ roles separate: gcloud manages Google Cloud access, and kubectl interacts with Kubernetes. section 3.2.1
- Create a GKE Autopilot cluster and retrieve its credentials from the command line. section 3.2.1
Create and connect to a cluster
Set CLUSTER_NAME and REGION, run gcloud container clusters create-auto, then run gcloud container clusters get-credentials. Verify access with kubectl get pods. section 3.2.1
CLUSTER_NAME=my-cluster REGION=us-west1 gcloud container clusters create-auto $CLUSTER_NAME --region $REGION gcloud container clusters get-credentials $CLUSTER_NAME --region $REGION
Shows the complete command-line sequence for creating an Autopilot cluster and configuring kubectl credentials. section 3.2.1
