However, for legacy systems, on-premise servers, and any scenario where you must run gcloud with a specific robot identity, this command remains .
Best practices:
The command follows a precise structure to bind your local Google Cloud CLI session to a dedicated service account identity. gcloud auth activate-service-account
You cannot store your personal gcloud auth login session in a CI runner—it expires, and you can’t click "Allow" in a browser. With service accounts, you store the JSON key as a CI secret and activate it on the fly: However, for legacy systems, on-premise servers, and any
gcloud auth activate-service-account deployment-manager@prod-environment-3402.iam.gserviceaccount.com \ --key-file=/etc/secrets/gcp/prod-deploy-key.json Use code with caution. for legacy systems