Auto-completion

gcloud interactive has auto prompting for commands and flags, and displays inline help snippets in the lower section as the command is typed.

Static information, like command and sub-command names, and flag names and enumerated flag values, are auto-completed using dropdown menus.

Install the beta components:

gcloud components install beta

Enter the gcloud interactive mode:

gcloud beta interactive

When using the interactive mode, click on the Tab key to complete file path and resource arguments. If a dropdown menu appears, use the Tab key to move through the list, and the Space bar to select your choice.

Try it out! Start typing the following command, using auto-complete to finish the command:

gcloud compute instances describe <your_vm>

Across the bottom of Cloud Shell you can see the shortcut to toggles this feature. Try out the F2 toggle:

F2: help: STATE Toggles the active help section, ON when enabled, OFF when disabled.