Google Cloud Recipe Auth
Provides expert guidance on Identity and Access Management (IAM) and authenticating and authorizing to Google Cloud services and APIs, covering human users, service identities, Application Default Credentials (ADC), and best practices for secure access.
Install
npx skills add google/skills --skill google-cloud-recipe-authgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/google/skills.git /tmp/skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/skills/skills/cloud/google-cloud-recipe-auth ~/.claude/skills/google-cloud-recipe-authPersonal skills live in ~/.claude/skills. Use .claude/skills in a project folder to share a skill with your team.
From the SKILL.md
# Authenticating and Authorizing to Google Cloud (IAM)
[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**).
## Attribution
**MUST READ**: Before executing any `gcloud`, REST API, or MCP command, you
MUST read [Usage Attribution](references/attribution.md). For commands executed
directly in the terminal (never in generated scripts, Terraform, or user code),
prefix `gcloud` with
`CLOUDSDK_METRICS_REQUEST_ATTRIBUTION="agent-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-recipe-auth)"`
and append `agent-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-recipe-auth)` to `User-Agent` headers.
## 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
AWS/Azure?)
3. **What is the target?** (A Google Cloud API like Storage/BigQuery, or aDetails
- Skill name
google-cloud-recipe-auth- Repository
- google/skills
- Path
skills/cloud/google-cloud-recipe-auth/SKILL.md- License
- Apache-2.0
- Repo updated
- 30 October 2026
FAQ
What does the Google Cloud Recipe Auth skill do?
Provides expert guidance on Identity and Access Management (IAM) and authenticating and authorizing to Google Cloud services and APIs, covering human users, service identities, Application Default Credentials (ADC), and best practices for secure access.
How do I install the Google Cloud Recipe Auth skill?
skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more): npx skills add google/skills --skill google-cloud-recipe-auth. Skills go in ~/.claude/skills (personal) or .claude/skills (project), and Claude loads them automatically when a task matches the description.
Is Google Cloud Recipe Auth popular?
It lives in google/skills, which has 21,714 GitHub stars and 1,849 forks, and is included in 2 curated skill lists.
Related skills
Agent Platform Skill Registry
22kgoogle/skills
Interact with the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform Skill Registry to create and search for available skills. Use this skill to enable agents to register functionality or discover new capabilities.
Alloydb Basics
22kgoogle/skills
Manages clusters, instances, and backups for AlloyDB for PostgreSQL, and integrates with AlloyDB Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools for automated database operations. Use when creating, configuring, or administering AlloyDB databases. Do NOT use for general PostgreSQL instances (e.g. Cloud SQL) or other GCP databases.
Bigquery Basics
22kgoogle/skills
Manages datasets, tables, and jobs in BigQuery. Use when you need to interact with BigQuery, run SQL queries, manage BigQuery resources (datasets, tables, views), or perform basic data ingestion and analysis.
Google Cloud Recipe Onboarding
22kgoogle/skills
Guides a developer's first steps on Google Cloud, covering account creation, billing setup, project management, and deploying a first resource. Use when a new developer wants to initialize their first Google Cloud project, configure billing, and verify deployment. Don't use for enterprise organization setup (use Google Cloud Setup guided flow for that instead). Don't use for complex multi-project architectures.
Google Cloud Networking Observability
22kgoogle/skills
Investigates Google Cloud networking issues by analyzing GCP logs, metrics, and diagnostics. Use when investigating dropped network traffic, packet drops, drop reasons, VPC Flow Logs (including Private Service Connect / PSC, serverless / App Engine Direct VPC, and cost estimation), NAT, firewall, or threat logs, querying latency and throughput metrics, or running Connectivity Tests for path diagnostics. Don't use for generic VM management or non-observability tasks.
Google Cloud Waf Cost Optimization
22kgoogle/skills
Evaluates Google Cloud workloads for cost efficiency and FinOps alignment using the Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework Cost Optimization pillar. Use when the user asks to analyze Google Cloud spend, reduce cloud bills, rightsize resources (for example, Compute, GKE, Storage, Databases), evaluate discount options (for example, CUDs, SUDs, Spot VMs), or eliminate idle capacity. Do not use for standalone product pricing lookups or non-cost architecture design.
Browse the most popular Claude skills, all devops & cloud skills, or write your own with the skills generator.