Introduction to Google Cloud Build | Generated by AI

Home 2026.01 English 中文

---

Question: Comprehensive introduction to Cloud Build in Google Cloud

Answer:

Cloud Build is Google Cloud’s fully managed, serverless CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery) platform. It allows you to automatically build, test, and deploy your software whenever code changes occur.

Core Concept

You define what Cloud Build should do by providing a build configuration file — most commonly cloudbuild.yaml — placed in your source repository. This file contains a list of steps (tasks) that run sequentially (or in parallel since ~2021–2022 improvements).

Each step is essentially a container that runs on Google infrastructure. You can use:

• Official Google-provided builders (gcr.io/cloud-builders/...)
• Community builders
• Any public Docker image from Docker Hub, Artifact Registry, etc.
• Your own custom container images

Key Features (as of early 2026)

• Triggers — Automatic builds on
  • Push to branch / tag (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Cloud Source Repositories)
  • Pull Request creation / update
  • Pub/Sub events
  • Manual trigger / schedule (via Cloud Scheduler)
  • Webhook
• Built-in integrations
  • GitHub App (very popular)
  • GitLab
  • Bitbucket
  • Cloud Source Repositories
  • Artifact Registry / Container Registry
  • Secret Manager
  • Cloud Logging & Cloud Monitoring
  • Binary Authorization (for supply-chain security)
• Parallel & caching
  • Multiple steps can run in parallel (waitFor controls dependencies)
  • Automatic source & dependency caching between builds (very fast incremental builds)
• Buildpacks support
  • gcr.io/buildpacks/builder — zero-config builds for Java, Node.js, Python, Go, .NET, Ruby, PHP, etc.

• Kaniko / BuildKit / img / crane — build container images without privileged Docker daemon

• Very generous free tier
  • 120 build-minutes / day free (120 min × number of workers you choose)
  • Most small-to-medium projects stay within free quota
• Concurrency & scaling
  • You choose machine type per step: E2, N1, E2-highcpu, up to very large custom machines
  • Default concurrency limit is usually high enough (can request increase)
• Security features
  • Runs in your project (or shared VPC)
  • VPC Service Controls support
  • Binary Authorization + Vulnerability Scanning integration
  • Private pools (on-prem / air-gapped / custom network builds)

Typical Workflow Examples

1. Simple container build & push

steps:
  - name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
    args: ['build', '-t', 'us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/my-repo/myapp', '.']
  - name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
    args: ['push', 'us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/my-repo/myapp']
images: ['us-central1-docker.pkg.dev/$PROJECT_ID/my-repo/myapp']

1. Modern buildpacks + deploy to Cloud Run

steps:
  - name: 'gcr.io/buildpacks/builder'
    args: ['--project-id', '$PROJECT_ID']
  - name: 'gcr.io/google.com/cloudsdktool/gcloud'
    entrypoint: 'gcloud'
    args:
      - 'run'
      - 'deploy'
      - 'my-service'
      - '--image=$_IMAGE'
      - '--region=us-central1'
      - '--allow-unauthenticated'

1. Test + Build + Deploy multi-language monorepo

steps:
  - name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/npm'
    dir: 'frontend'
    args: ['ci', '&&', 'npm', 'run', 'test']
  - name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/go'
    dir: 'backend'
    args: ['test', './...']
  - name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
    args: ['build', '-t', '$_IMAGE', '.']
    waitFor: ['-']
options:
  substitutionOption: 'ALLOW_LOOSE'

Pricing (2025–2026)

Tier	Price per build-minute
Free tier	120 minutes/day free
Standard (after free)	~$0.0032 – $0.006 / min (depends on machine type)
High-CPU / custom machines	Higher (still very competitive)

Most teams pay very little unless running hundreds of large builds daily.

When to Choose Cloud Build vs Alternatives

• Choose Cloud Build if you are already in Google Cloud or planning to be
• Prefer it over GitHub Actions / GitLab CI if you want tight integration with Artifact Registry, Cloud Run, GKE, Binary Authorization, and minimal YAML boilerplate
• Prefer GitHub Actions if your team lives entirely in GitHub and has no other GCP usage

Cloud Build remains one of the fastest, most cost-effective, and best-integrated CI/CD solutions in the Google Cloud ecosystem in 2026.

References:

• [Overview of Cloud Build

  Google Cloud](https://docs.cloud.google.com/build/docs/overview)

• Cloud Build documentation home
• Cloud Build main product page

---

Back

x-ai/grok-4.1-fast

Donate