About the gcloud CLI

This page describes how to get started with the gcloud CLI so you can use it to manage Cloud SQL instances. The gcloud CLI uses the Cloud SQL Admin API to access Cloud SQL, so you must enable the API before you can use the gcloud CLI to access Cloud SQL.

For gcloud examples, see the How-to page for the task.

Getting started with the gcloud CLI

To start with the gcloud CLI, review the gcloud CLI Documentation. You can get help for the tool, resources, and commands by using the --help flag:

gcloud sql --help
gcloud sql instances --help
gcloud sql instances create --help

The help displayed with the --help flag is also available in the gcloud CLI reference for gcloud sql.

Finally, configure a project as your default project with two commands. The first command below lists the configuration for the gcloud CLI, including any default project already set. The second command sets the default project.

gcloud config list
gcloud config set project [PROJECT_ID]