Managing gcloud CLI components

Components are the installable parts of the Google Cloud CLI. A component can be a command-line tool (gcloud, bq, and gsutil), a set of gcloud CLI commands at the Alpha, Beta, or Preview release levels, or a package that contains dependencies used by a tool in the gcloud CLI.

The most commonly-used components are installed by default. If you run a gcloud alpha, gcloud beta, or gcloud preview command interactively and the alpha, beta, or preview component is not installed, the gcloud CLI asks you whether you want to install it. An affirmative response installs the component and then runs the command. Other components are installed on-demand by the gcloud CLI when you run commands that require them.

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Default components

When you install the gcloud CLI, the following components are installed by default:

ID	Name	Description
`gcloud`	Default gcloud CLI commands	Tool for interacting with Google Cloud. Only commands at the General Availability release level are installed with this component. You must separately install the `gcloud alpha` Commands, `gcloud beta` Commands, and/or `gcloud preview` Commands components if you want to use commands at other release levels.
`bq`	BigQuery command-line tool	Tool for working with data in BigQuery
`gsutil`		Legacy tool for performing Cloud Storage tasks. Use `gcloud storage` commands instead.
`core`	gcloud CLI core libraries	Libraries used internally by the gcloud CLI tools.

Alpha, beta, and preview components

The gcloud CLI provides components that contain gcloud CLI alpha, beta, and preview commands. These components aren't installed by default, but you can install them manually at any time after the initial gcloud CLI installation. These components are:

ID	Name	Description
`alpha`	gcloud CLI alpha commands	gcloud CLI commands at the alpha release level.
`beta`	gcloud CLI beta commands	gcloud CLI commands at the beta release level.
`preview`	gcloud CLI preview commands	gcloud CLI commands at the preview release level.

gcloud CLI commands at the General Availability release level are part of the gcloud CLI component and are installed automatically when you install the gcloud CLI.

A list of all available additional components and external package managers, which aren't installed by default, appears below.