Step Snap 1 [GCP Service Account]:

What is a Service Account? A Service Account is like a "robot account" - it's not meant for human users but rather for applications and services to authenticate and access GCP resources.

Main Uses with Examples:

1. Application Access

{
  "type": "service_account",
  "project_id": "my-project",
  "private_key_id": "abc123...",
  "client_email": "[email protected]"
}

• For example, when your application needs to access Cloud Storage
• Use Service Account instead of personal credentials

1. Automation

• Used in CI/CD pipelines
• Terraform automation
• Scheduled tasks

How to Create:

# In GCP Console
1. Go to IAM & Admin -> Service Accounts
2. Create Service Account
3. Set permissions (like storage read/write)
4. Download key file (JSON format)

Usage Scenarios:

1. Terraform Example

provider "google" {
  credentials = file("path/to/service-account.json")
  project     = "my-project"
  region      = "us-central1"
}

1. Application Example

from google.cloud import storage
client = storage.Client.from_service_account_json('path/to/service-account.json')

Security Best Practices:

1. Follow principle of least privilege