Learn how to get started creating a workstation with Cloud Workstations.

Aworkstation is a preconfigured development environment that administratorsor platform teams define in aworkstation configuration. The workstationconfiguration includes the container image used by the workstation. Youradministrators choose whether to use one of the Cloud Workstationspreconfigured base images or whether to provide a reference to acustomized container image.

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To follow step-by-step guidance for this task directly in the Google Cloud console, clickGuide me:

Guide me

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Before you begin

Before you begin using Cloud Workstations, be sure that you have therequired permissions and that you complete these required setup steps.You can skip this section if you've already completed this setup.

Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains theresourcemanager.projects.create permission.Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains theresourcemanager.projects.create permission.Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

1. Enable the Cloud Workstations API.

   Roles required to enable APIs

   To enable APIs, you need the Service Usage Admin IAM role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin), which contains theserviceusage.services.enable permission.Learn how to grant roles.

   Enable the API

2. Optional: If you don't have workstation configurations available in theGoogle Cloud console, ask your administrator to create a workstation configuration for you, or make sure that you have a Cloud Workstations Admin IAM role on the project so that you can create these resources yourself. To check your IAM roles, go to the IAM page in the Google Cloud console:

   Go to IAM

Create a workstation

To create a workstation, follow these steps:

1. In the Google Cloud console, navigate to theCloud Workstations >Workstationspage.

   Go to Workstations

2. Clickadd_boxCreate.

   TheCreate link might be disabled if there aren't anyworkstation configurations in the project or if you don't have permissionsto view them.Ask your organization's Cloud Workstations Admin to create aworkstation configuration for you.

3. Accept the default workstationName.

   If you prefer, you can enter your own resource name for yourworkstation—for example,test-workstation.Follow the Compute Engine resourcenaming conventions and choose a name that is unique within the workstation cluster.

4. Click thearrow_drop_downexpanderarrow in theConfiguration field and select theworkstation configuration to define your workstation.

5. ClickCreateto create your workstation.

Launch a workstation

Now that you have created a workstation, you can start it and then launch itto begin development:

1. ClickWorkstations.
2. Find the workstation that you created in the list of available workstations,select the checkbox beside it, and then clickStart. This starts yourworkstation, and matches it to the parent workstation configuration.
3. If prompted to start your workstation, clickStart to confirm.The status changes toStarting and the status iconrefreshspins while the startoperation is in progress. It might take a few minutes to start yourworkstation.
4. When your workstation is ready, the status changes toRunning and thestatus icon changes to acheck_circle checkmark.

5. ClickLaunch. The workstation connects to port80 by default.

   Optional: You can also click thearrow_drop_downexpanderarrow next toLaunch and select from the list of launch options:

   • Connect to port 80 (default)
   • Connect to web app on port
   • Port forwarding
   • Connect using SSH
   • Launch with JetBrains Gateway (if you are using a JetBrains IDE)

6. The following example shows the welcome page for the Cloud Workstationsbase editor.Your page might look different, depending on how you define yourworkstation configuration:

   

   For more information about connecting through SSH, seeSSH support.

   For more information about connecting to web apps running on yourworkstation, seeAccess HTTP servers running on a workstation.

Clean up

To delete a workstation from the Google Cloud console:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go toCloud Workstations >Workstations.
2. Select the checkbox beside the workstation that you want to delete.
3. Click themore_vertMore options menu andselectDelete to delete the selected workstation.

If your workstation configuration uses persistent disks and thereclaim policy is set to retain persistent disks after you delete the workstation, be sure toremind your Cloud Workstations Admin to manually delete thepersistent disk for you.For more about deleting workstation configurations,workstation clusters, and Google Cloud projects,seeDelete resources.

What's next

• Use theCloud Workstations base editor.

• Learn more about configuring additional options in yourworkstation configuration.

• Customize yourworkstation configuration through the API.

• Createcustomized container images that extend thepreconfigured base imagesprovided by Cloud Workstations.