Installing the AI Platform (Unified) client libraries

Client libraries provide an optimized developer experience for calling the AI Platform (Unified) API. The client libraries use each supported language's natural conventions and reduces boilerplate code that you have to write. The following guide explains how to install them.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud Console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Enable the AI Platform (Unified) API.

   Enable the API

4. Create a service account:

   1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Create service account page.

      Go to Create service account
   2. Select a project.

   3. In the Service account name field, enter a name. The Cloud Console fills in the Service account ID field based on this name.

      In the Service account description field, enter a description. For example, Service account for quickstart.

   4. Click Create.

   5. Click the Select a role field.

      Under Quick access, click Basic, then click Owner.

      Note: The Role field affects which resources your service account can access in your project. You can revoke these roles or grant additional roles later. In production environments, do not grant the Owner, Editor, or Viewer roles. For more information, see Granting, changing, and revoking access to resources.
   6. Click Continue.

   7. Click Done to finish creating the service account.

      Do not close your browser window. You will use it in the next step.

5. Create a service account key:

   1. In the Cloud Console, click the email address for the service account that you created.
   2. Click Keys.
   3. Click Add key, then click Create new key.
   4. Click Create. A JSON key file is downloaded to your computer.
   5. Click Close.

6. Set the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to the path of the JSON file that contains your service account key. This variable only applies to your current shell session, so if you open a new session, set the variable again.

   Example: Linux or macOS

   Replace [PATH] with the path of the JSON file that contains your service account key.

   export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="[PATH]"

   For example:

   export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="/home/user/Downloads/service-account-file.json"

   Example: Windows

   Replace [PATH] with the path of the JSON file that contains your service account key.

   With PowerShell:

   $env:GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="[PATH]"

   For example:

   $env:GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="C:\Users\username\Downloads\my-key.json"

   With command prompt:

   set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=[PATH]

Client libraries

AI Platform provides client libraries for the following languages. Select the language that you want to use.

Java

If you are using Maven with BOM, add the following to your pom.xml file:

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>google-cloud-aiplatform</artifactId>
    <version>0.4.0</version>
  </dependency>

If you are using Maven without BOM, add the following to your dependencies:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
  <artifactId>google-cloud-aiplatform</artifactId>
  <version>0.4.0</version>
</dependency>

If you are using Gradel, add the following to your dependencies:

compile 'com.google.cloud:google-cloud-aiplatform:0.4.0'

If you are using sbt, add the following to your dependencies:

libraryDependencies += "com.google.cloud" % "google-cloud-aiplatform" % "0.4.0"

Try code samples

To view or get individual code samples, go to the java-aiplatform GitHub repository.

Client library documentation

For more information, view the Google AI Platform Client for Java documentation.

Node.js

Before installing the library, prepare your environment for Node.js development.

Run the following command in your environment to install the client library:

npm install @google-cloud/aiplatform

Client library documentation

For more information, view the AI Platform: Node.js Client documentation.

Python

AI Platform (Unified) SDK

The Python client library for AI Platform (Unified) is now called the AI Platform (Unified) SDK. With the release of version 0.7 (Preview), the AI Platform (Unified) SDK provides two levels of support. The high-level aiplatform library is designed to simplify common data science workflows by using wrapper classes and opinionated defaults. The lower-level aiplatform.gapic library remains available for those times when you need more flexibility or control, or for those methods that are not supported by the AI Platform (Unified) SDK.

When you install the AI Platform (Unified) SDK, you can use both levels of support. If you mix aiplatform and aiplatform.gapic calls in the same workflow, be aware that the two approaches use different initialization procedures; you must initialize for each one separately.

To see an example of the AI Platform (Unified) SDK used as part of a more comprehensive workflow, run the "Custom training image classification model for online prediction with unmanaged dataset" Jupyter notebook in one of the following environments:

• Run the notebook in Colab.
• Run the notebook in AI Platform Notebooks.
• View the notebook on GitHub.

Before you install

Before you install the AI Platform (Unified) SDK, we recommend creating an isolated Python environment for each project. Activate a venv environment or use another method to create an isolated Python environment.

Learn more about setting up a Python development environment to work with Google Cloud.

Another option is to create an AI Platform Notebooks instance for this project. If you are working in a notebook, install the AI Platform (Unified) SDK on your notebook instance or environment.

Install the AI Platform (Unified) SDK

Run the following command in your virtual environment to install the AI Platform (Unified) SDK:

YOUR_ENVIRONMENT/bin/pip install google-cloud-aiplatform

Try code samples

To view or get individual code samples, go to the python-aiplatform GitHub repository.

Client library documentation

For more information, view the Python Client for Cloud AI Platform documentation.