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To connect your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account with your LocalOps account, you must create a Connection in LocalOps.

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Connections

A connection represents LocalOps’s access to the target cloud account. All operations performed by LocalOps on a target cloud account, are done through its corresponding connection.

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Pre-requisites

  1. A Google Cloud account.
  2. A new Google Cloud project to connect. We recommend creating a brand new project for LocalOps to keep it isolated from your other resources.
  3. You’ll need Owner access to the target Google Cloud project. If you are connecting your client/customer’s Google Cloud project, the point of contact in your customer’s end must have Owner access to the project.

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Create a new connection

1

Add a new connection

Sign in to LocalOps, click on “Connections” from the navigation pane on the left side and click on “Add a new connection”.
2

Pick Google Cloud

Pick Google Cloud as the cloud provider, give the connection a name and click “Connect GCP account”.
3

A new Cloud Shell window opens

A new Google Cloud Shell window opens in a separate browser tab. When you open the Cloud Shell tab for the first time, a few popups will show up. Just authorize and accept all the popups to continue to Cloud Shell.
Open in Cloud Shell — check Trust repo and click Confirm

Trust the repo and click Confirm

Authorize Cloud Shell dialog

Click Authorize to let Cloud Shell make Google Cloud API calls

4

Run the setup command

Go back to the previous LocalOps tab and follow the instructions shown to copy and paste the setup command into the Cloud Shell.Here is a sample of the setup command you will see in the LocalOps console. The values shown below are placeholders — use the exact command displayed in your LocalOps console, as it contains the credentials specific to your connection.
5

Pick a Google Cloud project

When the command asks you to pick a Google Cloud project to connect, pick one and proceed.
6

Terraform provisions access

The command runs a Terraform script that creates a new service account with the Owner role. This is the service account LocalOps uses to access the project and manage resources henceforth.
Once the setup command completes, come back to the LocalOps Connections page to see the connection becoming Active.
When you open the Cloud Shell tab for the first time, a few popups will appear (trust the repo, authorize Cloud Shell). Just authorize and accept all of them to continue.

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How does this access work?

To connect to the target Google Cloud project, the setup command runs a Terraform script inside Google Cloud Shell that creates a new service account with the Owner role. LocalOps uses this service account to access the project and manage resources on your behalf whenever you trigger an operation (say a new deployment) from the LocalOps console. The Terraform script that runs in your Cloud Shell to set up the connection is open source and available here: github.com/localopsco/gcp-connect.

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Safe and secure

Your connection works through a keyless OIDC protocol. LocalOps does not store or keep any permanent credentials at its end to access your Google Cloud project. Instead of long-lived keys, access is authenticated on demand through OIDC. Whenever LocalOps needs to access your project, it obtains short-lived credentials just for that operation — there are no static keys sitting around that could be leaked or misused. This makes the connection safe and secure by design.

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Need help?

If you have any questions during this process, chat with us from the chat bar on the bottom-right side, or write to us at support@localops.co.