A complete step-by-step guide to creating and deploying your first application on Google App Engine.
- Setting Up App Engine
- Creating Your Application
- Configuring Service Account
- Application Creation in Progress
- Getting Started with Deployment
- Installing Google Cloud SDK
- Extracting Cloud SDK
- Running SDK Installation
- SDK Components
- Path Configuration
- Authentication Success
- Cloud Shell Welcome
- Initializing gcloud
- Creating main.py
- Creating requirements.txt
- Creating app.yaml
- Running gcloud init
- Authenticating gcloud
- Setting Project ID
- Project Configuration Confirmed
- Navigating to Project Directory
- Deploying to App Engine
- Accessing the Deployed App
- Application Running
- Viewing Versions
- Application Settings
- Disabling the Application
- Application Disabled
What's happening:
- You've navigated to the Google Cloud Console's App Engine Dashboard
- The welcome screen introduces App Engine as a platform to "Build scalable apps in any language on Google's infrastructure"
- The interface shows various sections in the left sidebar: Services, Versions, Instances, Task queues, Cron jobs, Firewall rules, Quotas, Memcache, and Settings
- Google is promoting Cloud Run as a modern alternative with lower minimum billable times and GPU support for AI/ML workloads
Key Point: This is the starting point for creating your first App Engine application.
What's happening:
- You've clicked to create a new App Engine application
- The configuration wizard shows two main steps: "Configure application" and "Get started"
- Critical Decision: You must select a region for your App Engine application
- Important Warning: "Once selected, the region is permanently tied to the project" - this cannot be changed later!
- You also need to configure Identity and API access by selecting a service account
Action Required: Select your preferred geographic region from the dropdown menu.
What's happening:
- A modal dialog has appeared to select a service account
- You can see the "App Engine default service account" option
- Options available:
- Use the default App Engine service account
- Create a new service account
- Refresh the list to see other available service accounts
Key Point: Service accounts define the identity and permissions your App Engine application will use when accessing other Google Cloud resources.
What's happening:
- The application is being created - you can see "Creating application..." with a loading spinner
- The screen shows a promotion for Cloud Run, mentioning it's "available in all the Google Cloud supported regions"
- The creation process happens in the background and may take a few moments
Status: Wait for the application creation to complete.
What's happening:
- Success! "Your App Engine application has been created"
- Now you're presented with deployment options:
- Language: Python (selected)
- Environment: Standard (selected)
- Resources provided:
- Link to App Engine Python Standard Environment Documentation
- GitHub samples for Python Standard Environment
- Deployment instructions shown for using Google Cloud SDK:
gcloud init # Initialize your SDK gcloud app deploy # Deploy to App Engine
Next Step: You need to install the Google Cloud SDK to deploy your application.
What's happening:
- You've navigated to the Google Cloud SDK page at cloud.google.com
- The page describes Cloud SDK as "Libraries and tools for interacting with Google Cloud products and services"
- Key features listed:
- Client Libraries for Java, C++, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Go, .NET, PHP, Rust, and ABAP
- Google Cloud CLI for scripting and interacting with cloud resources
- Local development emulators for Pub/Sub, Spanner, Bigtable, and Datastore
- A video explaining "What is the Google Cloud SDK?" is available
Action Required: Download and install the Google Cloud CLI for your operating system.
What's happening:
- You've downloaded the Google Cloud SDK (specifically the Darwin ARM version for macOS)
- Running the command in Terminal:
tar -xf /Users/muditatrey/Downloads/google-cloud-cli-darwin-arm.tar.gz
- This extracts the SDK archive to create a
google-cloud-sdkdirectory in your home folder
Technical Note: The extraction creates the necessary file structure for the Cloud SDK installation.
What's happening:
- Running the installation script:
./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh
- The installer asks: "Do you want to help improve the Google Cloud CLI (y/N)?"
- This is about anonymized usage data and crash reports collection
- The user has chosen "n" (no) to opt out of data collection
- You can change this later with:
gcloud config set disable_usage_reporting false
Privacy Note: This is optional and doesn't affect SDK functionality.
What's happening:
- The installer displays all available SDK components:
- Not Installed: Various optional tools like
gke-gcloud-auth-plugin,istioctl,kpt,kubectl,kubectl-oidc,pkg - Installed by default:
- BigQuery Command Line Tool (
bq) - 1.8 MiB - Cloud Storage Command Line Tool (
gsutil) - 12.4 MiB - Google Cloud CLI Core Libraries (
core) - 23.2 MiB - Google Cloud CRC32C Hash Tool (
gcloud-crc32c) - 1.4 MiB
- BigQuery Command Line Tool (
- Not Installed: Various optional tools like
Management Commands:
gcloud components install COMPONENT_ID # Install components
gcloud components remove COMPONENT_ID # Remove components
gcloud components update # Update to latest version
What's happening:
- The installer asks: "Modify profile to update your $PATH and enable shell command completion?"
- User response: "y" (yes)
- The installer prompts: "Enter a path to an rc file to update, or leave blank to use [/Users/muditatrey/.zshrc]:"
- Since the user is on macOS using zsh shell, the default
.zshrcis appropriate
Important: This modification allows you to run gcloud commands from anywhere in your terminal without specifying the full path.
What's happening:
- Browser window showing: "You are now authenticated with the gcloud CLI!"
- The OAuth authentication flow has completed successfully
- The page provides helpful resources:
- gcloud CLI guide for command-line tools
- Information about accessing services with the gcloud CLI
- Client Libraries documentation for programming language integration
Status: Your local machine is now authorized to interact with your Google Cloud project.
What's happening:
- This shows Google Cloud Shell, a browser-based terminal environment
- Welcome message: "Welcome to Cloud Shell! Type 'help' to get started"
- New feature: Gemini CLI is available - type
geminito try it - The session is automatically set to project:
peaceful-garden-477817-u9 - Cloud Shell provides a pre-configured environment with gcloud CLI already installed
Note: Cloud Shell is an alternative to local SDK installation, accessible directly from the browser.
What's happening:
- The OAuth authorization URL is displayed (long authentication URL)
- User confirmation: "You are signed in as: [muditatreya07@gmail.com]"
- Project selection menu displayed with multiple projects:
- indigo-terra-335116
- jarvis-5b558
- jarvis-82c4d
- optimal-inis-442104-d1
- peaceful-garden-477817-u9 ← Selected (option 5)
- symbolic-app-446214-s5
- Enter a project ID
- Create a new project
- Confirmation: "Your current project has been set to: [peaceful-garden-477817-u9]"
- Note about default zone/region settings and Compute Engine API
Action Completed: The gcloud CLI is now configured to use the correct project.
What's happening:
- Creating
main.pyusing nano text editor - Application code:
from flask import Flask app = Flask(__name__) @app.route("/") def hello(): return "HELLO MUDIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!"
- This is a simple Flask web application with a single route that returns a greeting message
- The bottom of the screen shows nano editor controls
Purpose: This is your actual application code that will run on App Engine.
What's happening:
- Creating
requirements.txtusing nano - Contents:
Flask==3.0.0 gunicorn - Flask==3.0.0: The web framework for your Python application
- gunicorn: A Python WSGI HTTP Server that will serve your Flask application in production
Purpose: This file tells App Engine which Python packages to install when deploying your application.
What's happening:
- Creating
app.yamlusing nano - Configuration:
runtime: python311 entrypoint: gunicorn -b :$PORT main:app
- runtime: python311 - Specifies Python 3.11 as the runtime environment
- entrypoint - Defines the command to start your application:
- Uses
gunicornweb server - Binds to port specified by
$PORTenvironment variable - Points to the
appobject inmain.py
- Uses
Purpose: This file is required by App Engine to know how to run your application.
What's happening:
- Running the command:
./google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud init - A helpful tip is shown: "Run 'gcloud cheat-sheet' to see a roster of go-to 'gcloud' commands"
- This command starts the initialization process to configure the gcloud CLI
Note: The user is running gcloud from the extracted SDK directory path.
What's happening:
- Running:
./google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud auth login - The browser has opened automatically for OAuth authentication
- Terminal shows a long OAuth URL that was opened
- Success message: "You are now logged in as [muditatreya07@gmail.com]"
- Current project confirmed: "Your current project is [peaceful-garden-477817-u9]"
- Helpful command shown to change projects:
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
Status: Authentication successful - you can now use gcloud commands.
What's happening:
- Running the command:
./google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud config set project peaceful-garden-477817-u9 - This explicitly sets the active project for all subsequent gcloud commands
Purpose: Ensures all future commands target the correct Google Cloud project.
What's happening:
- The command from the previous step completed successfully
- Information message: "Project 'peaceful-garden-477817-u9' has no 'environment' tag set"
- Suggestion to use tags: 'Production', 'Development', 'Test', or 'Staging'
- You can add tags using:
gcloud resource-manager tags bindings create - Confirmation: "Updated property [core/project]"
Status: Your gcloud configuration now points to the correct project.
What's happening:
- Navigating to the project directory:
cd ~/Documents/Codes/Gcloud\ Example
- Listing files with
lscommand shows:app.yaml- App Engine configurationmain.py- Your Flask application coderequirements.txt- Python dependencies
Status: You're now in the directory containing all your application files, ready to deploy.
What's happening:
- Running:
~/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud app deploy - Warning about automatic scaling: App Engine will set max_instances default to 20 starting March 2025
- Deployment summary displayed:
- Descriptor:
/Users/muditatrey/Documents/Codes/Gcloud Example/app.yaml - Target project:
peaceful-garden-477817-u9 - Target service:
default - Target version:
20251113t212119(timestamp-based) - Target URL:
https://peaceful-garden-477817-u9.el.r.appspot.com - Service account:
peaceful-garden-477817-u9@appspot.gserviceaccount.com
- Descriptor:
- User confirms with: "y"
- Deployment steps:
- "Uploading 3 files to Google Cloud Storage"
- "File upload done"
- "Updating service [default]...done"
- "Setting traffic split for service [default]"
- "Deployed service [default]"
- Helpful commands provided:
gcloud app logs tail -s default- Stream logsgcloud app browse- Open in browser
Status: Deployment successful! Your application is now live.
What's happening:
- Browser navigating to the deployed application URL
- URL:
https://peaceful-garden-477817-u9.el.r.appspot.com - The page is loading...
Action: Accessing your live application for the first time.
What's happening:
- Success! The application is running and displaying the message:
HELLO MUDIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!! - This is the exact string returned by your Flask application's
hello()function - Your application is now publicly accessible on the internet via the App Engine URL
Achievement Unlocked: You've successfully deployed your first application to Google App Engine!
What's happening:
- Viewing the App Engine Versions dashboard in Google Cloud Console
- Version details:
- Version:
20251113t212119(timestamp from deployment) - Status: Serving (green indicator)
- Traffic Allocation: 100% (all traffic goes to this version)
- Instances: 0 (no active instances at the moment)
- Runtime:
python311 - Runtime Lifecycle: General Availability (GA)
- Environment: Standard
- Size: 8.3MB
- Version:
- Available actions: Stop, Start, Migrate traffic, Split traffic
Key Point: The Versions dashboard allows you to manage multiple versions of your app and control traffic distribution.
What's happening:
- Viewing the Settings page for your App Engine application
- Application settings displayed:
- Google login cookie expiration: Default (1 day)
- Referrers: Google Accounts API
- Default service account:
peaceful-garden-477817-u9@appspot.gserviceaccount.com - SSL Policy: TLS 1.0+ (Obsolete)
- Edit Application Settings button available
- Disable application section:
- Warning: "Disabling an application will stop all serving requests, but you will not lose any data or state"
- Note: "Billing charges will still incur when applicable"
- You can re-enable at any time
- Default Cloud Storage Bucket:
- Free: Up to 5GB without enabling billing
- Bucket:
peaceful-garden-477817-u9.appspot.com
- Identity-Aware Proxy: Currently DISABLED
Purpose: This page manages global settings for your App Engine application.
What's happening:
- A modal dialog has appeared asking: "Disable app peaceful-garden-477817-u9?"
- Important information about disabling:
- ✓ The app will stop serving
- ✓ All data and state will be saved
- ✓ Billing charges will still incur when applicable
- ⚠ Task queues will continue to run (can be paused separately)
- Confirmation required: You must re-type the project ID
peaceful-garden-477817-u9to confirm - This prevents accidental disabling of your application
Security Feature: The typed confirmation ensures you really want to disable the application.
What's happening:
- The Versions dashboard now shows: "Your app is currently disabled"
- Version
20251113t212119status has changed to: Stopped (grey indicator) - Traffic Allocation still shows 100% (but no traffic is actually being served)
- A button appears: "Enable in settings" to restart the application
- All other version details remain the same (Runtime: python311, Environment: Standard)
Status: The application is no longer serving requests but can be re-enabled at any time from the Settings page.
Congratulations! You've completed the full walkthrough of creating, deploying, and managing a Google App Engine application. Here's what you accomplished:
- ✅ Created an App Engine application in Google Cloud Console
- ✅ Installed and configured Google Cloud SDK
- ✅ Authenticated with your Google account
- ✅ Created a simple Flask web application
- ✅ Configured App Engine deployment files
- ✅ Deployed your application to App Engine
- ✅ Verified the application is running
- ✅ Explored the App Engine dashboard and settings
- ✅ Learned how to disable/enable your application
- main.py - Your Flask application code
- requirements.txt - Python dependencies (Flask, gunicorn)
- app.yaml - App Engine configuration
# Install and configure SDK
./google-cloud-sdk/install.sh
gcloud init
gcloud auth login
# Set project
gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID
# Deploy application
gcloud app deploy
# View logs
gcloud app logs tail -s default
# Open in browser
gcloud app browseCreated by Mudit Atrey