Method: instanceGroups.listInstances

Lists the instances in the specified instance group. TheorderBy query parameter is not supported. Thefilter query parameter is supported, but only for expressions that useeq (equal) orne (not equal) operators.

HTTP request

POST https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instanceGroups/{instanceGroup}/listInstances

The URL usesgRPC Transcoding syntax. To know more about valid error responses that can be thrown by this HTTP request, please refer to theservice error catalog

Path parameters

Parameters
project

string

Project ID for this request.

zone

string

The name of thezone where the instance group is located.

instanceGroup

string

The name of the instance group from which you want to generate a list of included instances.

Authorization requires the followingIAM permission on the specified resourceinstanceGroup:

  • compute.instanceGroups.get

Query parameters

Parameters
maxResults

integer (uint32 format)

The maximum number of results per page that should be returned. If the number of available results is larger thanmaxResults, Compute Engine returns anextPageToken that can be used to get the next page of results in subsequent list requests. Acceptable values are0 to500, inclusive. (Default:500)

pageToken

string

Specifies a page token to use. SetpageToken to thenextPageToken returned by a previous list request to get the next page of results.

filter

string

A filter expression that filters resources listed in the response. Most Compute resources support two types of filter expressions: expressions that support regular expressions and expressions that follow API improvement proposalAIP-160. These two types of filter expressions cannot be mixed in one request.

If you want to use AIP-160, your expression must specify the field name, an operator, and the value that you want to use for filtering. The value must be a string, a number, or a boolean. The operator must be either=,!=,>,<,<=,>= or:.

For example, if you are filtering Compute Engine instances, you can exclude instances namedexample-instance by specifyingname != example-instance.

The:* comparison can be used to test whether a key has been defined. For example, to find all objects withowner label use:

labels.owner:*

You can also filter nested fields. For example, you could specifyscheduling.automaticRestart = false to include instances only if they are not scheduled for automatic restarts. You can use filtering on nested fields to filter based onresource labels.

To filter on multiple expressions, provide each separate expression within parentheses. For example:

(scheduling.automaticRestart = true)(cpuPlatform = "Intel Skylake")

By default, each expression is anAND expression. However, you can includeAND andOR expressions explicitly. For example:

(cpuPlatform = "Intel Skylake") OR(cpuPlatform = "Intel Broadwell") AND(scheduling.automaticRestart = true)

If you want to use a regular expression, use theeq (equal) orne (not equal) operator against a single un-parenthesized expression with or without quotes or against multiple parenthesized expressions. Examples:

fieldname eq unquoted literalfieldname eq 'single quoted literal'fieldname eq "double quoted literal"(fieldname1 eq literal) (fieldname2 ne "literal")

The literal value is interpreted as a regular expression using GoogleRE2 library syntax. The literal value must match the entire field.

For example, to filter for instances that do not end with name "instance", you would usename ne .*instance.

You cannot combine constraints on multiple fields using regular expressions.

orderBy

string

Sorts list results by a certain order. By default, results are returned in alphanumerical order based on the resource name.

You can also sort results in descending order based on the creation timestamp usingorderBy="creationTimestamp desc". This sorts results based on thecreationTimestamp field in reverse chronological order (newest result first). Use this to sort resources like operations so that the newest operation is returned first.

Currently, only sorting byname orcreationTimestamp desc is supported.

returnPartialSuccess

boolean

Opt-in for partial success behavior which provides partial results in case of failure. The default value is false.

For example, when partial success behavior is enabled, aggregatedList for a single zone scope either returns all resources in the zone or no resources, with an error code.

Request body

The request body contains data with the following structure:

JSON representation
{"instanceState":enum}
Fields
instanceState

enum

A filter for the state of the instances in the instance group. Valid options areALL orRUNNING. If you do not specify this parameter the list includes all instances regardless of their state.

Response body

If successful, the response body contains data with the following structure:

JSON representation
{"kind":string,"id":string,"items":[{"instance":string,"status":enum,"namedPorts":[{"name":string,"port":integer}]}],"nextPageToken":string,"selfLink":string,"warning":{"code":enum,"message":string,"data":[{"key":string,"value":string}]}}
Fields
kind

string

[Output Only] The resource type, which is alwayscompute#instanceGroupsListInstances for the list of instances in the specified instance group.

id

string

[Output Only] Unique identifier for the resource; defined by the server.

items[]

object

A list of InstanceWithNamedPorts resources.

items[].instance

string

[Output Only] The URL of the instance.

items[].status

enum

[Output Only] The status of the instance.

items[].namedPorts[]

object

[Output Only] The named ports that belong to this instance group.

items[].namedPorts[].name

string

The name for this named port. The name must be 1-63 characters long, and comply withRFC1035.

items[].namedPorts[].port

integer

The port number, which can be a value between 1 and 65535.

nextPageToken

string

[Output Only] This token allows you to get the next page of results for list requests. If the number of results is larger thanmaxResults, use thenextPageToken as a value for the query parameterpageToken in the next list request. Subsequent list requests will have their ownnextPageToken to continue paging through the results.

selfLink

string

[Output Only] Server-defined URL for this resource.

warning

object

[Output Only] Informational warning message.

warning.code

enum

[Output Only] A warning code, if applicable. For example, Compute Engine returnsNO_RESULTS_ON_PAGE if there are no results in the response.

warning.message

string

[Output Only] A human-readable description of the warning code.

warning.data[]

object

[Output Only] Metadata about this warning inkey: value format. For example:

"data": [  {  "key": "scope",  "value": "zones/us-east1-d"  }

warning.data[].key

string

[Output Only] A key that provides more detail on the warning being returned. For example, for warnings where there are no results in a list request for a particular zone, this key might bescope and the key value might be the zone name. Other examples might be a key indicating a deprecated resource and a suggested replacement, or a warning about invalid network settings (for example, if an instance attempts to perform IP forwarding but is not enabled for IP forwarding).

warning.data[].value

string

[Output Only] A warning data value corresponding to the key.

Authorization scopes

Requires one of the following OAuth scopes:

  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute.readonly
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform

For more information, see theAuthentication Overview.

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Last updated 2025-09-18 UTC.