Google Cloud Authentication Recipe

Select and implement appropriate Google Cloud authentication and identity patterns.

googlegeminicloudbigquerysecurity-engineeringgoogle-cloud

Read exactly what Claude will be told

SKILL.md

---
name: google-cloud-recipe-auth
description: Provides expert guidance on authenticating and authorizing to Google Cloud services and APIs, covering human users, service identities, Application Default Credentials (ADC), and best practices for secure access.
---

# Authenticating to Google Cloud

[Authentication](https://docs.cloud.google.com/docs/authentication.md.txt) is the
process of proving **who you are**. In Google Cloud, you represent a
**Principal** (an identity like a user or a service). This is the first step
before [Authorization](https://docs.cloud.google.com/iam/docs/overview.md.txt)
(determining **what you can do**).

## Authentication

### Clarifying Questions for the Agent

Before providing a specific solution, clarify the following with the user:

1.  **Who or what is authenticating?** (A human developer, a local script, or an
    application running in production?)
2.  **Where is the code running?** (Local laptop, [Compute
    Engine](https://docs.cloud.google.com/compute/docs.md.txt),
    [GKE](https://docs.cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs.md.txt), [Cloud
    Run](https://docs.cloud.google.com/run/docs.md.txt), or another cloud like