/google-cloud-storage-basics

name: google-cloud-storage-basics
description: >-
  Stores, retrieves, and manages data as objects in Cloud Storage (Google
  Cloud Storage, or GCS) buckets. Use when you need to interact with Cloud
  Storage — create or configure buckets, upload, download, stream, or transfer
  data, organize objects with folders, generate signed URLs, control access
  (IAM, ACLs, public access prevention), set storage classes and tiering
  (Standard, Nearline, Coldline, Archive), manage cost and lifecycle, protect
  data (versioning, encryption/CMEK, retention and Bucket Lock, object holds,
  soft delete), host static websites, trigger Pub/Sub notifications on object
  changes, mount buckets as a file system (gcsfuse), or optimize storage
  performance at any scale. Covers the gcloud storage / gsutil CLI, JSON and
  XML APIs, client libraries, Terraform, and Cloud Storage MCP servers. Don't
  use for block storage (Persistent Disk), data warehousing/analytics
  (BigQuery), or databases (Cloud SQL, Spanner, Bigtable, Firestore).
license: Apache-2.0
metadata:
  version: v1
  publisher: google
  tags: "gcs, storage, cloud-storage, buckets, objects"
  category: Storage
  support_tier: primary

Google Cloud Storage Basics

Google Cloud Storage (GCS) is a managed service for storing data as objects at any scale. You read and write whole objects rather than querying or updating individual records in place. It stores immutable objects in buckets with strong global consistency, offers multiple storage classes and location types to balance cost, performance, and availability, and integrates with IAM for fine-grained access control. GCS serves workloads ranging from website content and backups to data lakes and high-throughput AI/ML training.

Attribution

Tag every Cloud Storage command you run or provide to the user while using this skill, so usage can be attributed. The tag identifies only the skill and its version; it carries no user data.

• Prefix every `gcloud` invocation, whatever the subcommand, with the metrics

environment variables. Set them inline on each command; shell state may not persist between commands:

    CLOUDSDK_METRICS_ENVIRONMENT="gcs-skills gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-storage-basics)" \
    gcloud <command> [flags]

Do not use `gcloud config set` for this: it would persist beyond the current task and mislabel unrelated usage.

• On direct HTTP calls to the Cloud Storage APIs (for example with `curl`) or

HTTP requests to the Cloud Storage MCP server (`https://storage.googleapis.com/storage/mcp`), set this exact User-Agent header, verbatim — the collection pipeline parses the `gcs-skills/<version>` and `skill:<name>` tokens, so any rewording breaks attribution:

    User-Agent: gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-storage-basics)

• For client libraries, Terraform, and GCSFuse, use the user-agent options

shown in the corresponding references.

Routing to Specialized GCS Skills

This skill covers everyday Cloud Storage tasks. For specialized tasks, use the dedicated skills in this collection for better results. Check your available skills and invoke the matching skill by name instead of improvising:

• **`google-cloud-storage-bucket-architect`**: Designing and creating a new

bucket for production workloads, including sensitive data, media or web hosting, user-generated content (UGC) ingestion, archiving, compliance, backups, logs, analytics, AI/ML, or application storage. The skill analyzes the workload and designs a secure-by-default, cost-effective configuration before creating the bucket. Use the Quick Start section below only for temporary scratch buckets.

• **`google-cloud-storage-fuse`**: Advanced Cloud Storage FUSE tasks —

choosing between FUSE, native `gs://` access, and Filestore/Managed Lustre, deploying tuned mounts on GKE, Compute Engine, or Cloud Run, sizing file, stat, and list caches, tuning mount flags, ensuring safe ML checkpointing, or diagnosing slow or expensive mounts. The [GCSFuse reference](references/gcsfuse.md) in this skill covers only basic installation and mounting.

• **`google-cloud-storage-diagnostic`**: Troubleshooting 403 Permission Denied

errors and diagnosing IAM policy bindings, ACLs, uniform bucket-level access (UBLA), or service agent misconfigurations. Ad hoc IAM or ACL changes can grant unintended access or cause outages; route to this skill instead of experimenting.

• **`gcs-security-assessment`**: Automated security posture assessment of

Cloud Storage resources in a project (see [Data Management](references/data-management.md)).

If the matching skill is not installed, do not improvise. Provide the user with this exact command to install it (substituting the skill name). Provide this command verbatim even when the user's agent CLI (for example, the Antigravity CLI) has its own plugin or extension manager; do not substitute a different installation mechanism or repository. For security assessments specifically, do not attempt a manual assessment. Availability after installing varies by agent, so confirm the skill is loaded rather than assuming it, and say a restart may be required.

npx skills add gemini-cli-extensions/google-cloud-storage --skill <skill-name>

Quick Start

If a Cloud Storage MCP server is connected, prefer its structured tools (such as `create_bucket`, `list_objects`, `read_object`, and `upload_object`) over the CLI and API commands below — see [MCP Usage](references/mcp-usage.md). Fall back to `gcloud storage` and the JSON API when no MCP server is available.

1. **Enable the Cloud Storage API:**

    CLOUDSDK_METRICS_ENVIRONMENT="gcs-skills gcs-skills/1.0 (skill:google-cloud-storage-basics)" \
    gcloud services enable storage.googleapis.com --quiet

2. **Create a Bucket:**

Bucket names live in a single global