Submit a build using CLI and API

This page describes how to start a build in Cloud Build manually using the Google Cloud CLI and the Cloud Build API.

Before you begin

Required IAM permissions

To get the permissions that you need to submit builds, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on your service account:

For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

You might also be able to get the required permissions through custom roles or other predefined roles.

Running builds

You can specify the source of your build using the Build source field. The Build source field is one of the following: storage_source, repo_source, git_source and connected_repository.

Submit builds with storage_source

gcloud

Using a Dockerfile:

Your Dockerfile contains all information needed to build a Docker image using Cloud Build.

To build using a Dockerfile, run the following command from the directory containing your source code and the Dockerfile:

gcloud builds submit --tag LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME

Where:

  • LOCATION: the regional or multi-regional location of your Docker repository in Artifact Registry.
  • PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID.
  • REPOSITORY: the name of your Artifact Registry repository.
  • IMAGE_NAME: the name of the container image to be built.

The full name of the image to be built is LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME. Images pushed to Artifact Registry use the Artifact Registry naming convention.

The gcloud builds submit command:

  • compresses your application code, Dockerfile, and any other assets in the current directory as indicated by .;
  • initiates a build in the location LOCATION using the uploaded files as input;
  • tags the image using the provided name;
  • pushes the built image to Artifact Registry.

As the build progresses, its output is displayed in your shell or terminal window. When the build is complete, you should see an output similar to the following:

    DONE
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ID                                    CREATE_TIME                DURATION STATUS
    $BUILD_ID                             2023-10-28T15:21:18+00:00  12S      SUCCESS

where $BUILD_ID is your build's unique identifier.

Using the Cloud Build build config file:

To submit a build using the build config, run the following command:

    gcloud builds submit --config BUILD_CONFIG SOURCE

Where:

  • BUILD_CONFIG is the path to the build config file.
  • SOURCE is the path or URL source code.

When you run gcloud builds submit for the first time in a Google Cloud project, Cloud Build creates a Cloud Storage bucket named [YOUR_PROJECT_NAME]_cloudbuild in that project. Cloud Build uses this bucket to store any source code that you might use for your builds. Cloud Build does not automatically delete contents in this bucket. To delete objects you're no longer using for builds, you can either set up lifecycle configuration on the bucket or manually delete the objects.

The following command demonstrates how to submit a cloudbuild.yaml build request using source code stored in a Cloud Storage bucket.

    gcloud builds submit --config cloudbuild.yaml \
        gs://BUCKET/SOURCE.tar.gz

Where:

  • BUCKET is the name of your bucket in Cloud Storage containing your source code to build.
  • SOURCE is the name of your compressed source code file.

You can use . to specify that the source code is in the current working directory:

    gcloud builds submit --config=cloudbuild.yaml .

API

To submit the build request using curl:

  1. Create a file named request.json with the following contents:

    {
    "source": {
        "storageSource": {
            "bucket": "BUCKET",
            "object": "SOURCE.tar.gz"
        }
    },
    "steps": [{
        "name": "gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker",
        "args": [
            "build",
            "-t",
            "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME",
            "."
        ]
    }],
    "images": [
        "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME"
    ]
}

    Where:

    • BUCKET is the name of your Cloud Storage bucket containing your source code to build.
    • SOURCE is the name of your compressed source code file.
    • IMAGE_NAME is the name of the image to be built.
    • LOCATION: the regional or multi-regional location of your Docker repository in Artifact Registry.
    • PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID.
    • REPOSITORY: the name of your Docker repository in Artifact Registry.

    In this build request, Cloud Build calls the docker build step with the arguments build -t LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY ..

    The full name of the image to be built is LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY.

    Images pushed to Artifact Registry use the Artifact Registry naming convention.

  2. Run the following command, where PROJECT_ID is your Google Cloud project ID and REGION is one of the supported regions:

    curl -X POST -T request.json -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud config config-helper \
    --format='value(credential.access_token)')" \
    https://cloudbuild.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/REGION/builds

    In this command, curl sends request.json in a POST call to the builds endpoint for the projects.builds.create API method.

    The command displays details about your build in your shell or terminal window. The output is a JSON response and appears similar to the following:

        {
        "name": "operations/build/$PROJECT-ID/NmZhZW...",
        "metadata": {
            "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.devtools.cloudbuild.v1.BuildOperationMetadata",
            "build": {
                "id": $BUILD-ID,
                "status": "QUEUED",
                "source": {
                    "storageSource": {
                        "bucket": "BUCKET",
                        "object": "SOURCE.tar.gz"
                    }
                },
                "createTime": "2017-05-12T18:58:07.341526Z",
                "steps": [
                {
                    "name": "gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker",
                    "args": [
                        "build",
                        "-t",
                        "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME",
                        "."
                    ]
                }
                ],
                "timeout": "600s",
                "images": [
                    "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME"
                ],
                "projectId": $PROJECT-ID,
                "logsBucket": "gs://...",
                "sourceProvenance": {
                    "resolvedStorageSource": {
                        "bucket": "BUCKET",
                        "object": "SOURCE.tar.gz"
                        "generation": "..."
                    }
                },
                "logUrl": "https://console.cloud.google.com/cloud-build/builds/...?project=$PROJECT_ID"
            }
        }
    }

    The JSON response is modeled using the Operation resource in the Cloud Build API. The metadata field is modeled using the Build resource. The QUEUED status indicates that the build is awaiting execution.

Submit builds with connected_repository

gcloud

To run a build request with build source from a 2nd-gen repository resource, run the following command:

gcloud builds submit REPOSITORY --revision=REVISION --config=BUILD_CONFIG LOCATION

Where:

  • LOCATION is the regional or multi-regional location of your Docker repository in Artifact Registry.
  • REPOSITORY is the name of the Cloud Build 2nd-gen repository, formatted as projects/*/locations/*/connections/*repositories/*.
  • REVISION is the revision to fetch from the Git repository such as a branch, a tag, a commit SHA, or any Git ref.
  • BUILD_CONFIG is the path to the build config file.

As the build progresses, its output is displayed in your shell or terminal window. When the build is complete, you should see an output similar to the following:

    DONE
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    ID                                    CREATE_TIME                DURATION STATUS
    $BUILD_ID                             2023-10-28T15:21:18+00:00  12S      SUCCESS

where $BUILD_ID is your build's unique identifier.

gcloudignore: When including source code for the build, the previous command uploads all of the files in the specified directory to Google Cloud to build. If you want to exclude certain files in the directory, then you can include a file named .gcloudignore in the top-level upload directory; the files that it specifies will be ignored. If .gcloudignore isn't present in the top-level upload directory, but a .gitignore file is, the gcloud CLI generates a Git-compatible .gcloudignore file that respects your .gitignore-ed files. For more information, see the gcloudignore documentation.

If you don't have source code to pass in to your build, use the --no-source flag where BUILD_CONFIG is the path to the build config file:

    gcloud builds submit --config CONFIG_FILE_PATH SOURCE_DIRECTORY

API

To submit the build request using curl:

  1. Create a file named request.json with the following contents:

    {
    "source": {
        "connectedRepository": {
            "repository": "REPOSITORY",
            "revision": "REVISION"
        }
    },
    "steps": [{
        "name": "gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker",
        "args": [
            "build",
            "-t",
            "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME",
            "."
        ]
    }],
    "images": [
        "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME"
    ]
}

    Where:

    • REPOSITORY is the name of the Cloud Build 2nd-gen repository, formatted as projects/*/locations/*/connections/*repositories/*.
    • REVISION is the revision to fetch from the Git repository such as a branch, a tag, a commit SHA, or any Git ref.
    • IMAGE_NAME is the name of the image to be built.
    • LOCATION: the regional or multi-regional location of your Docker repository in Artifact Registry.
    • PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID.

    In this build request, Cloud Build calls the docker build step with the arguments build -t LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME ..

    The full name of the image to be built is LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME. Images pushed to Artifact Registry use the Artifact Registry naming convention.

  2. Run the following command where PROJECT_ID is your Google Cloud project ID and REGION is one of the supported regions:

    curl -X POST -T request.json -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud config config-helper \
    --format='value(credential.access_token)')" \
    https://cloudbuild.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/REGION/builds

    In this command, curl sends request.json in a POST call to the builds endpoint for the projects.builds.create API method.

    The command displays details about your build in your shell or terminal window. The output is a JSON response and appears similar to the following:

        {
        "name": "operations/build/$PROJECT-ID/NmZhZW...",
        "metadata": {
            "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.devtools.cloudbuild.v1.BuildOperationMetadata",
            "build": {
                "id": $BUILD-ID,
                "status": "QUEUED",
                "source": {
                    "connectedRepository": {
                        "repository": "REPOSITORY",
                        "revision": "REVISION"
                    }
                },
                "createTime": "2017-05-12T18:58:07.341526Z",
                "steps": [
                {
                    "name": "gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker",
                    "args": [
                        "build",
                        "-t",
                        "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME",
                        "."
                    ]
                }
                ],
                "timeout": "600s",
                "images": [
                    "LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE_NAME"
                ],
                "projectId": PROJECT_ID,
                "logsBucket": "gs://...",
                "sourceProvenance": {
                    "resolvedConnectedRepository": {
                        "repository": "REPOSITORY",
                        "revision": "REVISION.tar.gz"
                        "generation": "..."
                    }
                },
                "logUrl": "https://console.cloud.google.com/cloud-build/builds/...?project=PROJECT_ID"
            }
        }
    }

    The JSON response is modeled using the Operation resource in the Cloud Build API. The metadata field is modeled using the Build resource. The QUEUED status indicates that the build is awaiting execution.

What's next