Service Account integration in Google Cloud actions

February 18, 2021

Service Account integration in Google Cloud actions

Until now, each Google action in Buddy either used OAuth or required adding a Service Account Key. With this week's release, we have unified the authentication to Service Accounts only.

Contrary to OAuth, Service Accounts are much safer, as they allow for much higher granulation of permissions. This means you can narrow down access scopes of Buddy to a specific project or resources in the project.
As all Google actions have been rewritten onto the new mechanism, it is no longer possible to add new Google actions using an existing integration. You can however, edit the details of existing integrations, as well as the Google actions using them.

Configuration

Regardless if you already use gcloud actions or not, adding a new action to the pipeline will require you to configure a new integration via the Service Account Key. This applies to the following actions:

Clicking an action will bring up the integration window. Click the button at the top to proceed:

Enter a telling name for your integration and paste or upload the JSON with the key to your gcloud service account:

Make sure that the service account you're using is assigned permissions to the resources that the action requires.

The bottom part of the screen also lets you configure the scope of access to the integration within Buddy. For example, setting the scope to Private will prevent other users in the workspace from adding actions using this integration:

And that's it – you can automate your gcloud tasks with Buddy. Note the name of the newly added integration appear at the bottom:

How to get the Service Account Key

  1. Log in to your Google Cloud Platform
  2. Go to IAM & Admin → Service Accounts:

  1. Click the account that you want to integrate Buddy with
  2. Go to Keys at the bottom and click Add Key. Create a new key or upload an existing one from your disk:

  1. Select JSON as the type and click Create:

  1. Download the key to your disk and store it somewhere safe. You can now use it to add the integration in Buddy.
Buddy is 100% customer-driven. If there’s a feature or integration you miss, let us know in the comments below or directly at support@buddy.works.

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Alexander Kus

Alexander Kus

Customer Success Manager

A story-teller and conversation-lover, Alexander decided to invest his skills to help his friends at Buddy transform the cold language of patch notes into exciting narratives. Also: an avid gamer, hip-hop DJ, Liverpool FC fan, absentminded husband, and the father of two.