Google Cloud Pub/Sub Triggers

Cloud Functions can be triggered by messages published to Cloud Pub/Sub topics in the same GCP project as the function. Cloud Pub/Sub is a globally distributed message bus that automatically scales as you need it and provides a foundation for building your own robust, global services.

Event structure

Cloud Functions triggered from Cloud Pub/Sub topic events will be sent an event containing a PubsubMessage object. The format of the PubsubMessage is as per the published format for PubsubMessage objects.

The payload of the PubsubMessage (the data you published to the topic) is stored as a base64-encoded string in the data attribute of the PubsubMessage. To extract the payload of the PubsubMessage you need to decode the data attribute.

Sample code

Node.js 6

functions/helloworld/index.js

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/**
 * Background Cloud Function to be triggered by Pub/Sub.
 * This function is exported by index.js, and executed when
 * the trigger topic receives a message.
 *
 * @param {object} event The Cloud Functions event.
 * @param {function} callback The callback function.
 */
exports.helloPubSub = (event, callback) => {
  const pubsubMessage = event.data;
  const name = pubsubMessage.data ? Buffer.from(pubsubMessage.data, 'base64').toString() : 'World';

  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`);

  callback();
};

Node.js 8 (Beta)

functions/node8/index.js

View on GitHub

/**
 * Background Cloud Function to be triggered by Pub/Sub.
 * This function is exported by index.js, and executed when
 * the trigger topic receives a message.
 *
 * @param {object} data The event payload.
 * @param {object} context The event metadata.
 */
exports.helloPubSub = (data, context) => {
  const pubSubMessage = data;
  const name = pubSubMessage.data ? Buffer.from(pubSubMessage.data, 'base64').toString() : 'World';

  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`);
};

Python (Beta)

functions/helloworld/main.py

View on GitHub

def hello_pubsub(data, context):
    """Background Cloud Function to be triggered by Pub/Sub.
    Args:
         data (dict): The dictionary with data specific to this type of event.
         context (google.cloud.functions.Context): The Cloud Functions event
         metadata.
    """
    import base64

    if 'data' in data:
        name = base64.b64decode(data['data']).decode('utf-8')
    else:
        name = 'World'
    print('Hello, {}!'.format(name))

Note: Cloud Functions acks the message internally upon successful function execution. For information on how to handle failures using retries, see Retrying Background Functions.

Deploying your function

The following gcloud command deploys a function that will be triggered by Cloud Pub/Sub:

Node.js 6

gcloud functions deploy helloPubSub --runtime nodejs6 --trigger-resource TOPIC_NAME --trigger-event google.pubsub.topic.publish

Node.js 8 (Beta)

gcloud functions deploy helloPubSub --runtime nodejs8 --trigger-resource TOPIC_NAME --trigger-event google.pubsub.topic.publish

Python (Beta)

gcloud functions deploy hello_pubsub --runtime python37 --trigger-resource TOPIC_NAME --trigger-event google.pubsub.topic.publish

where TOPIC_NAME is the name of the Cloud Pub/Sub topic to which the function will be subscribed. If the topic doesn't exist, it is created during deployment.

Legacy Cloud Pub/Sub triggers

The gcloud command below deploys a function that is triggered by legacy Cloud Pub/Sub notifications on a specific topic. These notifications are supported for legacy functions already consuming these events. However, we recommend moving to the new event type as this one may be removed at a future date.

Node.js 6

gcloud functions deploy helloPubSub --runtime nodejs6 --trigger-resource hello_world --trigger-event providers/cloud.pubsub/eventTypes/topic.publish

Node.js 8 (Beta)

gcloud functions deploy helloPubSub --runtime nodejs8 --trigger-resource hello_world --trigger-event providers/cloud.pubsub/eventTypes/topic.publish

Python (Beta)

gcloud functions deploy hello_pubsub --runtime python37 --trigger-resource hello_world --trigger-event providers/cloud.pubsub/eventTypes/topic.publish

Next steps

See the Cloud Pub/Sub Tutorial for an example of how to implement a background function that is triggered by Cloud Pub/Sub.