google-cloud-recipe-onboarding

SKILL.md

Onboarding to Google Cloud

This skill provides a streamlined, non-interactive "happy path" for a singleton developer to get started with Google Cloud. It covers everything from environment verification and authentication to project selection, billing account linkage, and downstream safety chaining.

[!IMPORTANT]
For autonomous agents executing this skill:

Check-Before-Mutate Audits: Always perform silent pre-execution state audits prior to proposing or executing any project or billing changes.

Single-Question Policy: Ask the user for exactly one operational parameter or confirmation at a time during interactive execution.

Non-Interactive Output: Append non-interactive overrides (--quiet, --format="json") to all mutation commands to guarantee deterministic, machine-parseable outputs and prevent terminal hangs.

First Turn Interaction Rules (Trigger Turn): When the developer first triggers this skill with a general onboarding request (e.g. says "I want to get started with Google Cloud"):

Preamble Guidance: Proactively include a short orienting preamble guiding the developer to create a Google Cloud account (pointing to the console at https://console.cloud.google.com/) and run gcloud auth login to authorize their workstation, even if they appear to be already logged in.

First Turn Single-Question: Perform pre-flight audits silently, but do not present a complete parameters summary table or ask for final consent in the first turn. Instead, ask the developer exactly one initial operational question (e.g., "Would you like to reuse an existing active project, or create a brand new one?").
Note: If the developer's initial prompt explicitly states "I approve the onboarding configuration", "Let's proceed with onboarding", or requests a dry-run plan (e.g., "Show me the exact plan or dry-run commands"), bypass the general preamble and initial question, and proceed directly to the requested step.

Overview

For an individual developer, onboarding to Google Cloud involves verifying local terminal tools, establishing an authenticated session, selecting or instantiating a workspace (Project), and linking it to an active billing account. Google Cloud offers a Free Tier and a Free Trial with $300 in credits for first-time users. Learn more here.