Create and grant roles to service agents

In Google Cloud, project-level, folder-level, and organization-level service agents are created automatically as you enable and use Google Cloud services. Sometimes, these service agents are also automatically granted roles that allow them to create and access resources on your behalf.

If necessary, you can also ask Google Cloud to create project-level, folder-level, and organization-level service agents for a service before you use the service. Asking Google Cloud to create service agents lets you grant roles to service agents before you use a service. If a service agent hasn't been created yet, then you can't grant roles to the service agent.

This option is useful if you use one of the following strategies to manage your allow policies:

  • A declarative framework like Terraform. If your Terraform configuration doesn't include the service agents' roles, then those roles are revoked when you apply your configuration. By creating service agents and granting them roles in your Terraform configuration, you ensure that these roles aren't revoked.
  • A policies-as-code-system that stores copies of your current allow policies in a code repository. If you let Google Cloud grant roles to service agents automatically, those roles appear in your actual allow policy, but not in your stored copy of the allow policy. To resolve this inconsistency, you might incorrectly revoke these roles. By creating service agents and granting them roles proactively, you can help prevent drift between your code repository and your actual allow policies.

After you trigger service agent creation, you must grant the service agents the roles that they are typically granted automatically. If you don't, some services might not function properly. This is because service agents that are created at a user's request aren't automatically granted roles.

Before you begin

  • Enable the Resource Manager API.

    Enable the API

  • Understand service agents.

Required roles

Triggering service agent creation doesn't require any IAM permissions. However, you need specific IAM permissions for other tasks on this page:

  • To get the permission that you need to list available services and their endpoints, ask your administrator to grant you the Service Usage Viewer (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageViewer) IAM role on the project, folder, or organization that you want to list available services for. For more information about granting roles, see Manage access to projects, folders, and organizations.

    This predefined role contains the serviceusage.services.list permission, which is required to list available services and their endpoints.

    You might also be able to get this permission with custom roles or other predefined roles.

  • To get the permissions that you need to grant the service agents access, ask your administrator to grant you the following IAM roles on the project, folder, or organization that you're granting access to:

    • Grant service agents access to a project: Project IAM Admin (roles/resourcemanager.projectIamAdmin)
    • Grant service agents access to a folder: Folder Admin (roles/resourcemanager.folderAdmin)
    • Grant service agents access to projects, folders, and organizations: Organization Admin (roles/resourcemanager.organizationAdmin)

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

    These predefined roles contain the permissions required to grant the service agents access. To see the exact permissions that are required, expand the Required permissions section:

    Required permissions

    The following permissions are required to grant the service agents access:

    • Grant service agents access to a project:
      • resourcemanager.projects.getIamPolicy
      • resourcemanager.projects.setIamPolicy
    • Grant service agents access to a folder:
      • resourcemanager.folders.getIamPolicy
      • resourcemanager.folders.setIamPolicy
    • Grant service agents access to an organization:
      • resourcemanager.organizations.getIamPolicy
      • resourcemanager.organizations.setIamPolicy

    You might also be able to get these permissions with custom roles or other predefined roles.

Identify service agents to create

To identify the project-level, folder-level, and organization-level service agents that you need to ask Google Cloud to create, do the following:

  1. Make a list of the services that you use and their API endpoints. To view all available services and their endpoints, use one of the following methods:

    Console

    Go to the API Library page in the Google Cloud console.

    Go to API Library

    The API endpoint is the Service name listed in the Additional details section.

    gcloud

    The gcloud services list command lists all available services for a project.

    Before using any of the command data below, make the following replacements:

    • EXPRESSION: Optional. An expression to filter the results. For example, the following expression filters for all services whose names contain googleapis.com but don't contain sandbox:

      name ~ googleapis.com AND name !~ sandbox

      For a list of filter expressions, see gcloud topic filters.

    • LIMIT: Optional. The maximum number of results to list. The default is unlimited.

    Execute the following command:

    Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell

    gcloud services list --available --filter='EXPRESSION' --limit=LIMIT
    

    Windows (PowerShell)

    gcloud services list --available --filter='EXPRESSION' --limit=LIMIT
    

    Windows (cmd.exe)

    gcloud services list --available --filter='EXPRESSION' --limit=LIMIT
    

    The response contains the names and titles of all available services. The API endpoint is the value in the NAME field.

    REST

    The Service Usage API's services.list method lists all available services for a project.

    Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

    • RESOURCE_TYPE: The type of resource that you want to list available services for. Use projects, folders, or organizations.
    • RESOURCE_ID: The ID of the Google Cloud project, folder, or organization that you want to list available services for. Project IDs are alphanumeric strings, like my-project. Folder and organization IDs are numeric, like 123456789012.
    • PAGE_SIZE: Optional. The number of services to include in the response. The default value is 50, and the maximum value is 200. If the number of services is greater than the page size, the response contains a pagination token that you can use to retrieve the next page of results.
    • NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN: Optional. The pagination token returned in an earlier response from this method. If specified, the list of services will start where the previous request ended.

    HTTP method and URL:

    GET https://serviceusage.googleapis.com/v1/RESOURCE_TYPE/RESOURCE_ID/services?pageSize=PAGE_SIZE&pageToken=NEXT_PAGE_TOKEN

    To send your request, expand one of these options:

    The response contains the names and titles of all available services for the resource. If the number of available services is greater than the page size, the response also contains a pagination token.

    The API endpoint is the value in the name field.

  2. On the service agent reference page, search for each API endpoint.

    If the endpoint is listed in the table, find all service agents for that endpoint. Ignore any service agents whose email address contains the IDENTIFIER placeholder—those service agents are for service-specific resources, not projects, folders, or organizations.

    For each project-level, folder-level, and organization-level service agent, record the following:

    • The format of the service agent's email address.
    • The role that the service agent is granted, if any.

Trigger service agent creation

After you know which service agents you need to create, you can ask Google Cloud to create them.

When you ask Google Cloud to create service agents, you provide it with a service and a resource. Then, Google Cloud creates all service agents for that service and that resource.

gcloud

For each service that you need to create service agents for, do the following:

  1. Review the service agent email addresses for the service. Use the placeholders in the email addresses to determine which resources you need to create service agents for:

    Placeholder Where to create service agents
    PROJECT_NUMBER Each project where you will use the service
    FOLDER_NUMBER Each folder where you will use the service
    ORGANIZATION_NUMBER Each organization where you will use the service

  2. Create service agents for each resource.

    The gcloud beta services identity create command creates all service agents for the specified API and resource.

    Before using any of the command data below, make the following replacements:

    • ENDPOINT: The endpoint of the API that you want to create a service agent for—for example, aiplatform.googleapis.com.
    • RESOURCE_TYPE: The type of resource that you want to create a service agent for. Use project, folder, or organization.
    • RESOURCE_ID: The ID of the Google Cloud project, folder, or organization that you want to create a service agent for. Project IDs are alphanumeric strings, like my-project. Folder and organization IDs are numeric, like 123456789012.

      You can create service agents for one resource at a time. If you need to create service agents for multiple resources, run the command once for each resource.

    Execute the following command:

    Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell

    gcloud beta services identity create --service=ENDPOINT \
        --RESOURCE_TYPE=RESOURCE_ID
    

    Windows (PowerShell)

    gcloud beta services identity create --service=ENDPOINT `
        --RESOURCE_TYPE=RESOURCE_ID
    

    Windows (cmd.exe)

    gcloud beta services identity create --service=ENDPOINT ^
        --RESOURCE_TYPE=RESOURCE_ID
    

    The response contains the email address of the service's primary service agent. This email address includes the numeric ID of the project, folder, or organization that you created service agents for.

    If the service doesn't have a primary service agent, the response doesn't contain an email address.

    The following is an example of a response for a service that has a primary service agent.

    Service identity created: service-232332569935@gcp-sa-aiplatform.iam.gserviceaccount.com
    

  3. Optional: Record the service agent email address in the response, if any. This email address identifies the service's primary service agent. You can use this identifier to grant roles to the primary service agent.

Terraform

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands. For more information, see the Terraform provider reference documentation.

For each service that you need to create service agents for, do the following:

  1. Review the service agent email addresses for the service. Use the placeholders in the email addresses to determine which resources you need to create service agents for:

    Placeholder Where to create service agents
    PROJECT_NUMBER Each project where you will use the service
    FOLDER_NUMBER Each folder where you will use the service
    ORGANIZATION_NUMBER Each organization where you will use the service

  2. Create service agents for each resource. For example, the following code creates all project-level service agents for AI Platform:

data "google_project" "default" {
}

# Create all project-level aiplatform.googleapis.com service agents
resource "google_project_service_identity" "default" {
  provider = google-beta

  project = data.google_project.default.project_id
  service = "aiplatform.googleapis.com"
}

REST

For each service that you need to create service agents for, do the following:

  1. Review the service agent email addresses for the service. Use the placeholders in the email addresses to determine which resources you need to create service agents for:

    Placeholder Where to create service agents
    PROJECT_NUMBER Each project where you will use the service
    FOLDER_NUMBER Each folder where you will use the service
    ORGANIZATION_NUMBER Each organization where you will use the service

  2. Create service agents for each resource.

    The Service Usage API's services.generateServiceIdentity method creates all service agents for the specified API and resource.

    Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

    • RESOURCE_TYPE: The type of resource that you want to create a service agent for. Use projects, folders, or organizations.
    • RESOURCE_ID: The ID of the Google Cloud project, folder, or organization that you want to create service agents for. Project IDs are alphanumeric strings, like my-project. Folder and organization IDs are numeric, like 123456789012.

      You can create service agents for one resource at a time. If you need to create service agents for multiple resources, send one request for each resource.

    • ENDPOINT: The endpoint of the API that you want to create a service agent for—for example, aiplatform.googleapis.com.

    HTTP method and URL:

    POST https://serviceusage.googleapis.com/v1beta1/RESOURCE_TYPE/RESOURCE_ID/services/ENDPOINT:generateServiceIdentity

    To send your request, expand one of these options:

    The response contains an Operation indicting the status of your request. To check the status of the operation, use the operations.get method.

    Finished operations contain the email address of the service's primary service agent. This email address includes the numeric ID of the project, folder, or organization that you created service agents for.

    If the service doesn't have a primary service agent, the response doesn't contain an email address.

    The following is an example of a finished operation for a service that has a primary service agent.

    {
      "name": "operations/finished.DONE_OPERATION",
      "done": true,
      "response": {
        "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.api.serviceusage.v1beta1.ServiceIdentity",
        "email": "service-232332569935@gcp-sa-aiplatform.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
        "uniqueId": "112245693826560101651"
      }
    }
    

  3. Optional: Record the service agent email address in the response, if any. This email address identifies the service's primary service agent. You can use this identifier to grant roles to the primary service agent.

Grant roles to service agents

After Google Cloud creates the necessary service agents for your projects, folders, and organizations, you use the service agents' email addresses to grant them roles.

If you asked Google Cloud to create service agents, you must grant those service agents the roles that they are typically granted automatically. If you don't, some services might not function properly. This is because service agents that are created at a user's request aren't automatically granted roles.

To learn how to identify automatically granted roles, see Identify service agents to create.

Find the service agent's email address

To find a service agent's email address, do the following:

gcloud

  1. If you have not already, find the service agent's email address format. This format is documented in the service agent reference.

  2. Replace any placeholders in the email address with the corresponding project, folder, or organization number.

Alternatively, if the service agent is a primary service agent, you can get its email address by triggering service agent creation for the service. The command to trigger service agent creation returns the primary service agent's email address.

Terraform

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands. For more information, see the Terraform provider reference documentation.

  1. If you have not already, find the service agent's email address format. This format is documented in the service agent reference.

  2. Replace any placeholders in the email address with expressions that reference the appropriate project, folder, or organization number.

    For example, consider the following situation:

    • The email address format is service-PROJECT_NUMBER@gcp-sa-aiplatform-cc.iam.gserviceaccount.com
    • The service agent is for a project labeled default

    In this case, the service agent's email address is as follows:

    service-${data.google_project.default.number}@gcp-sa-aiplatform-cc.iam.gserviceaccount.com
    

Alternatively, if a service agent is the primary service agent for a service, you can get its email address from the email attribute of the google_project_service_identity resource.

For example, if you have a google_project_service_identity block labeled default, you can get the email address of the service's primary service agent by using the following expression:

${google_project_service_identity.default.email}

REST

  1. If you have not already, find the service agent's email address format. This format is documented in the service agent reference.

  2. Replace any placeholders in the email address with the corresponding project, folder, or organization number.

Alternatively, if the service agent is a primary service agent, you can get its email address by triggering service agent creation for the service. The command to trigger service agent creation returns the primary service agent's email address.

Grant a role to the service agent

After you find the service agent's email address, you can grant it a role just like you would grant a role to any other principal.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the IAM page.

    Go to IAM

  2. Select a project, folder, or organization.

  3. Click Grant Access, then enter the service agent's email address.

  4. Select a role to grant from the drop-down list.

  5. Optional: Add a condition to the role.

  6. Click Save. The service agent is granted the role on the resource.

gcloud

The add-iam-policy-binding command lets you quickly grant a role to a principal.

Before using any of the command data below, make the following replacements:

  • RESOURCE_TYPE: The resource type that you want to manage access to. Use projects, resource-manager folders, or organizations.

  • RESOURCE_ID: Your Google Cloud project, folder, or organization ID. Project IDs are alphanumeric, like my-project. Folder and organization IDs are numeric, like 123456789012.

  • PRINCIPAL: An identifier for the principal, or member, which usually has the following form: PRINCIPAL_TYPE:ID. For example, user:my-user@example.com. For a full list of the values that PRINCIPAL can have, see Principal identifiers.

    For the principal type user, the domain name in the identifier must be a Google Workspace domain or a Cloud Identity domain. To learn how to set up a Cloud Identity domain, see the overview of Cloud Identity.

  • ROLE_NAME: The name of the role that you want to revoke. Use one of the following formats:

    • Predefined roles: roles/SERVICE.IDENTIFIER
    • Project-level custom roles: projects/PROJECT_ID/roles/IDENTIFIER
    • Organization-level custom roles: organizations/ORG_ID/roles/IDENTIFIER

    For a list of predefined roles, see Understanding roles.

  • CONDITION: The condition to add to the role binding. If you don't want to add a condition, use the value None. For more information about conditions, see the conditions overview.

Execute the following command:

Linux, macOS, or Cloud Shell

gcloud RESOURCE_TYPE add-iam-policy-binding RESOURCE_ID \
    --member=PRINCIPAL --role=ROLE_NAME \
    --condition=CONDITION

Windows (PowerShell)

gcloud RESOURCE_TYPE add-iam-policy-binding RESOURCE_ID `
    --member=PRINCIPAL --role=ROLE_NAME `
    --condition=CONDITION

Windows (cmd.exe)

gcloud RESOURCE_TYPE add-iam-policy-binding RESOURCE_ID ^
    --member=PRINCIPAL --role=ROLE_NAME ^
    --condition=CONDITION

The response contains the updated IAM policy.

Terraform

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands. For more information, see the Terraform provider reference documentation.

# Grant the AI Platform Custom Code Service Account the Vertex AI Custom
# Code Service Agent role (roles/aiplatform.customCodeServiceAgent)
resource "google_project_iam_member" "custom_code" {
  project = data.google_project.default.project_id
  role    = "roles/aiplatform.customCodeServiceAgent"
  member  = "serviceAccount:service-${data.google_project.default.number}@gcp-sa-aiplatform-cc.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
}

# Grant the primary aiplatform.googleapis.com service agent (AI Platform
# Service Agent) the Vertex AI Service Agent role
# (roles/aiplatform.serviceAgent)
resource "google_project_iam_member" "primary" {
  project = data.google_project.default.project_id
  role    = "roles/aiplatform.serviceAgent"
  member  = "serviceAccount:${google_project_service_identity.default.email}"
}

REST

To grant a role with the REST API, use the read-modify-write pattern:

  1. Read the current allow policy by calling getIamPolicy().

    The Resource Manager API's getIamPolicy method gets a project's, folder's, or organization's allow policy.

    Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

    • API_VERSION: The API version to use. For projects and organizations, use v1. For folders, use v2.
    • RESOURCE_TYPE: The resource type whose policy you want to manage. Use the value projects, folders, or organizations.
    • RESOURCE_ID: Your Google Cloud project, organization, or folder ID. Project IDs are alphanumeric strings, like my-project. Folder and organization IDs are numeric, like 123456789012.
    • POLICY_VERSION: The policy version to be returned. Requests should specify the most recent policy version, which is policy version 3. See Specifying a policy version when getting a policy for details.

    HTTP method and URL:

    POST https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/API_VERSION/RESOURCE_TYPE/RESOURCE_ID:getIamPolicy

    Request JSON body:

    {
      "options": {
        "requestedPolicyVersion": POLICY_VERSION
      }
    }
    

    To send your request, expand one of these options:

    The response contains the resource's allow policy. For example:

    {
      "version": 1,
      "etag": "BwWKmjvelug=",
      "bindings": [
        {
          "role": "roles/owner",
          "members": [
            "user:my-user@example.com"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
    

  2. Edit the resource's allow policy, either by using a text editor or programmatically, to add or remove any principals or role bindings. For example, you could add a new role binding, remove an existing role binding, or add or remove principals from an existing role binding.

  3. Write the updated allow policy by calling setIamPolicy().

    The Resource Manager API's setIamPolicy method sets the policy in the request as the new allow policy for the project, folder, or organization.

    Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

    • API_VERSION: The API version to use. For projects and organizations, use v1. For folders, use v2.
    • RESOURCE_TYPE: The resource type whose policy you want to manage. Use the value projects, folders, or organizations.
    • RESOURCE_ID: Your Google Cloud project, organization, or folder ID. Project IDs are alphanumeric strings, like my-project. Folder and organization IDs are numeric, like 123456789012.
    • POLICY: A JSON representation of the policy that you want to set. For more information about the format of a policy, see the Policy reference.

    HTTP method and URL:

    POST https://cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com/API_VERSION/RESOURCE_TYPE/RESOURCE_ID:setIamPolicy

    Request JSON body:

    {
      "policy": POLICY
    }
    

    To send your request, expand one of these options:

    The response contains the updated allow policy.

What's next