Cloud CLI Patterns

Credentials are pre-configured. Use --help or Context7 for syntax.

BigQuery

# Always estimate cost first
bq query --dry_run --use_legacy_sql=false 'SELECT ...'

# Run query
bq query --use_legacy_sql=false --format=json 'SELECT ...'

# List tables
bq ls project:dataset

# Get table schema
bq show --schema --format=json project:dataset.table

Cost awareness: Charged per bytes scanned. Use --dry_run, partition tables, specify columns.

GCP (gcloud)

# List resources
gcloud compute instances list --format=json

# Describe resource
gcloud compute instances describe INSTANCE --zone=ZONE --format=json

# Create with explicit project
gcloud compute instances create NAME --project=PROJECT --zone=ZONE

# Use --quiet for automation
gcloud compute instances delete NAME --quiet

AWS

# List resources
aws ec2 describe-instances --output json

# With JMESPath filtering
aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId' --output text

# Explicit region
aws s3 ls s3://bucket --region us-west-2

# Dry run where available
aws ec2 run-instances --dry-run ...

References

• GCP.md - GCP service patterns and common commands
• AWS.md - AWS service patterns and common commands
• scripts/ - Helper scripts for common operations

Gotchas

• gcloud auth login and gcloud auth application-default login are DIFFERENT credentials — a script working for the user can 401 in CI because CI only has the latter.
• AWS CLI v1 vs v2 have different config formats — both may be installed; aws --version reveals which is the default aws binary.
• BigQuery cost estimation requires --dry_run — without it, you can run a $100 query thinking it's free. Always estimate first.
• Precedence: AWS_PROFILE vs --profile flag vs AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID direct env — three-way precedence is order-dependent and rarely documented.
• gcloud impersonation chains via --impersonate-service-account need IAM token-creator on EACH hop — missing one hop returns 403 with vague "permission denied".
• aws sts get-caller-identity is the cheapest way to verify which credential you're actually using — always check first.