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Auto-detect a project ID #1653
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Is there a spec for where we're supposed to look for a project ID? I think that's ... kind of scary.
We throw the error because a project ID wasn't specified. We get the auth client-- we can auth requests-- but we need the projectId for the construction of the URL to send the requests to. Is there an environment variable with the projectId that's set when
gcloud beta auth application-default loginis run?It's definitely stored somewhere, but it's definitely not an environment variable:
$ gcloud config list project Your active configuration is: [default] [core] project = jjg-cloud-researchI think it's a tiny bit scary to pull from a file. Totally fine to pull from an env variable. Can we look through how this might go wrong if we pull from a file somewhere? If there's nothing too nasty, we should add this to the list of stuff to do.
It looks like it's in
~/.config/gcloud/configurations/config_defaultfor me. There's also a file a level up,active_configwhich is just plain text, contents: "default". Presumably, I need to use the contents of that file to read from the correct config file (~/config/gcloud/configurations/config_{{contents}}). I put that into a PR: #1656It would be nice if this was simply an env var-- is it possible to squeeze that feature into the SDK directly?
If not, it doesn't bother me to read from the file, as long as my logic above is correct. In the worst case, it can't find it, and the program continues without the projectId, throwing the mesage that the user must set the
GCLOUD_PROJECTenv var or provide it.@jonparrott Can you chime in on how google-cloud-python does it?
I think google-cloud-python (well actually, github.com/google/oauth2client) looks for a file named
application_default_credentials.json.On Mac would be located at
~/.config/gcloud/application_default_credentials.json. Here's how the python client looks for it: https://github.com/google/oauth2client/blob/master/oauth2client/client.py#L1347So perhaps this needs to be solved in https://github.com/google/google-auth-library-nodejs
That file is read from google-auth-library (https://github.com/google/google-auth-library-nodejs/blob/02f587472ecdc2582f8d5fc754996aa6ef9388a0/lib/auth/googleauth.js#L231), but that file doesn't have the projectId in it-- at least not for me.
Nice! That looks like it's one step simpler than my approach in #1656, which reads the
active_configfile. Is it worth clearing up if we should be using that to find the correct config file, or just always look for default file? I'm not a power-user of the SDK, but if it's possible that other config files can be made / marked as active, that might invalidate the setting from the default file.I think first, get to feature parity with google-cloud-python on implicitly determining the project ID. Then open another issue to investigate the
active_configthing.I'd recommend doing it in the auth library if possible, as the new python auth library will work like this:
import google.auth credentials, project_id = google.auth.default()
Here's the implementation (based on the google-cloud-python
_helpers.py) file.As for
default_configvsactive_config, that requires a bit more attention... hmm..Sounds good, thanks for the link. I'm putting this functionality in its own module so that it can be used from the auth library, maybe:
var googleAuth = new GoogleAuth(); googleAuth.getApplicationDefault(function(err, authClient) { authClient.projectId === already detected & populated });
The big benefit for doing it within the same code that does ADC is that the same machinery is used to get the credentials and the project. So, it could simplify the implementation to do both at once.
(But it's totally up to you)
3 remaining items
Looks like googleapis/google-auth-library-nodejs#97 got closed by associated PR (googleapis/google-auth-library-nodejs#98) a few minutes ago.
Yep, getting close! Still a few more steps #1656
I think my problem belongs to this thread, because I struggled with the authentication process as jmdobry described above as well.
I am working with the tutorial sample code for the Speech API provided here: https://cloud.google.com/speech/docs/rest-tutorial (I am working with Node.js)
I have modified some lines in that tutorial sample code in order to get around the above mentioned error:
Error: Sorry, we cannot connect to Google Cloud Services without a project ID. You may
specify one with an environment variable named "GCLOUD_PROJECT". See
https://googlecloudplatform.github.io/google-cloud-node/#//docs/guides/authentication
for a detailed guide on creating an authenticated connection..1. I took the following lines from
https://googlecloudplatform.github.io/google-cloud-node/#/docs/google-cloud/0.41.2/speech
and added them to the tutorial sample code:var speechClient = speech({ projectId: 'grape-spaceship-123', // added my own credentials keyFilename: '/path/to/keyfile.json' // deployed the keyfile.json on my Desktop });.2. Also I changed this line here in the tutorial sample code from / to:
const speech = require('@google-cloud/speech’)();const speech = require('@google-cloud/speech');.3. I changed this line here as well from / to :
var utils = require('../utils');var utils = require('utils');.4. And I added the utils module to the node_modules file with
npm install -g utilsThese changes let me pass to the next step – to the CLI down at the bottom of the tutorial sample code:
Commands: sync <filename> Detects speech in an audio file. async <filename> Creates a job to detect speech in an audio file, and waits for the job to complete. stream <filename> Detects speech in an audio file by streaming it to the Speech API. listen Detects speech in a microphone input stream. Options: --help Show help [boolean] Examples: node recognize sync ./resources/audio.raw Detects speech in "./resources/audio.raw". node recognize async ./resources/audio.raw Creates a job to detect speech in "./resources/audio.raw", and waits for the job to complete. node recognize stream ./resources/audio.raw Detects speech in "./resources/audio.raw" by streaming it to the Speech API. node recognize listen Detects speech in a microphone input stream. For more information, see https://cloud.google.com/speech/docs Not enough non-option arguments: got 0, need at least 1I tried every example, yet I get the following error :
TypeError: utils.makeHandler is not a function at Object.handler (/Users/me/Desktop/speech/recognize.js:312:51) at Object.self.runCommand (/Users/me/Desktop/speech/node_modules/yargs/lib/command.js:158:22) at parseArgs (/Users/me/Desktop/speech/node_modules/yargs/yargs.js:727:28) at Object.Yargs.self.parse (/Users/me/Desktop/speech/node_modules/yargs/yargs.js:388:12) at Object.speech.recognize.speech.startRecognition.module.exports.main (/Users/me/Desktop/speech/recognize.js:305:25) at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/me/Desktop/speech/recognize.js:332:11) at Module._compile (module.js:409:26) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:416:10) at Module.load (module.js:343:32) at Function.Module._load (module.js:300:12)Why is this TypeError happening? Can anyone help me, please.
Hope this is understandable what I am writing.@thetittenquetscher You should move your question to the nodejs-docs-samples repository.
Your error was caused by changing
require('../utils');torequire('utils');. You should not have changed that, asutils.jsis a file local to the repository, and isn't something that can be installed globally. In addition, before you can successfully run the Speech API sample you need to follow the prerequisite instructions in the README.md file.Reacted by thetittenquetscher@jmdobry
The provided link helped me run the samples. Thank you.
- changed the title
[-]google-cloud-node does not work with Application Default Credentials[/-][+]Auto-detect a project ID[/+]on Nov 14, 2016 In case someone lands here looking for a solution when this happens in cloudshell, have a look to: https://stackoverflow.com/a/60153817/3198983
You'll basically have to run this line with your project id, which might be the name:
gcloud config set project [PROJECT_ID]- added a commit that references this issue
on Jul 23, 2025 - added a commit that references this issue
on Feb 25, 2026 - added a commit that references this issue
on Mar 17, 2026 - added a commit that references this issue
on Mar 18, 2026
Problem
After running
gcloud beta auth application-default loginI should be able to use google-cloud-node to access Google Cloud Platform services, but I can't. I must set theGCLOUD_PROJECTenv var or explicitly pass a project ID to a client for google-cloud-node to work.Steps to reproduce
gcloud init, you'll be prompted to set a default projectgcloud beta auth application-default loginand follow the OAuth 2.0 flow to logincd nodejs-docs-samples/storagenpm installnode buckets.js listObserve the error:
buckets.jsto explicitly pass in a project IDnode buckets.js listbuckets.jsGCLOUD_PROJECTenv var to your project IDnode buckets.js listExpected
cd nodejs-docs-samples/storagegcloud beta auth application-default loginnode buckets.js list(No env vars are set, code does not pass project ID to client)