Prerequisites

Before you can start coding your first client application, there are a few things you need to do, if you haven't done them already.

Get a Google Account

You need a Google Account in order to be given access to Compute Engine in the Google APIs Console. If you already have an account, then you're all set.

You may also want a separate Google Account for testing purposes.

To get started, you can create a VM instance on Compute Engine by using one of the following guides:

It's important to become familiar with Compute Engine basics before you continue. The API documentation assumes you have used Compute Engine and that you're familiar with web programming concepts and web data formats.

Learn about authentication

There are different ways to authenticate to Compute Engine depending on how you access the API. For more information, see Authenticate to Compute Engine.

Learn about REST

There are two ways to invoke the API:

Sending HTTP requests and parsing the responses.
Using client libraries.

If you decide not to use client libraries, you'll need to understand the basics of REST.

REST is a style of software architecture that provides a convenient and consistent approach to requesting and modifying data.

The term REST is short for "Representational State Transfer." In the context of Google APIs, it refers to using HTTP verbs to retrieve and modify representations of data stored by Google.

In a RESTful system, resources are stored in a data store; a client sends a request that the server perform a particular action (such as creating, retrieving, updating, or deleting a resource), and the server performs the action and sends a response, often in the form of a representation of the specified resource.

In Google's RESTful APIs, the client specifies an action using an HTTP verb such as POST, GET, PUT, or DELETE. It specifies a resource by a globally-unique URI of the following form:

https://www.googleapis.com/apiName/apiVersion/resourcePath?parameters

Because all API resources have unique HTTP-accessible URIs, REST enables data caching and is optimized to work with the web's distributed infrastructure.

You may find the method definitions in the HTTP 1.1 standards documentation useful; they include specifications for GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.

REST in the Compute Engine API

The Compute Engine API operations map directly to REST HTTP verbs.

The specific formats for Compute Engine API URIs are:

https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/resourcePath?parameters

The full set of URIs used for each supported operation in the API is summarized in the Compute Engine API Reference document.

Learn about the JSON data format

The Compute Engine API returns data in JSON format.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a common, language-independent data format that provides a simple text representation of arbitrary data structures. For more information, see json.org.