/gke-basics

GKE Client Libraries

To interact with the GKE (Kubernetes) API programmatically, use the official Kubernetes client libraries.

Prerequisite: These libraries interact with the Kubernetes API. You must already have a running GKE cluster and valid credentials (for example, by running gcloud container clusters get-credentials) before running this code.

Getting Started

Kubernetes client libraries allow you to manage clusters and workloads from within your application code.

Python

• Installation:

  pip install kubernetes

• Usage Example:

  from kubernetes import client, config
  config.load_kube_config() # Loads from ~/.kube/config
  v1 = client.CoreV1Api()
  print("Listing pods with their IPs:")
  ret = v1.list_pod_for_all_namespaces(watch=False)
  for i in ret.items:
      print("%s\t%s\t%s" % (i.status.pod_ip, i.metadata.namespace, i.metadata.name))

Go

• Installation:

  go get k8s.io/client-go@latest

• Usage Example:

  import (
      "k8s.io/client-go/kubernetes"
      "k8s.io/client-go/tools/clientcmd"
  )
  config, _ := clientcmd.BuildConfigFromFlags("", kubeconfig)
  clientset, _ := kubernetes.NewForConfig(config)
  pods, _ := clientset.CoreV1().Pods("").List(
      context.Background(), metav1.ListOptions{})

Node.js (TypeScript)

• Installation:

  npm install @kubernetes/client-node

• Usage Example:

  const k8s = require('@kubernetes/client-node');
  
  const kc = new k8s.KubeConfig();
  kc.loadFromDefault(); // Automatically detects local vs. in-cluster configuration
  
  const k8sApi = kc.makeApiClient(k8s.CoreV1Api);
  
  // In most recent library versions, parameters must be passed inside an object
  k8sApi.listNamespacedPod({ namespace: 'default' }).then((res) => {
      const pods = res.items || res.body.items;
      console.log(`Found ${pods.length} pods in 'default' namespace.`);
  });

Java

• Java Reference

GKE-specific API (Container Service)

To manage the GKE service itself (e.g., create/delete clusters) programmatically, use the Google Cloud Container client libraries.

• Google Cloud Container Client Libraries