Claude Code transcript - page 3/8

It's the boot disk source image — what OS gets installed on the VM. The value is passed verbatim to GCE's source_image field on the boot disk:

initialize_params=compute_v1.AttachedDiskInitializeParams(source_image=image)

(machine/providers/gcp.py:127)

Two formats you'll actually use

The family path is what the README example uses, and it's what you want unless you have a specific reason to pin.

Common public image projects + families

Listing what's available

gcloud compute images list                              # everything (long)
gcloud compute images list --filter="family:debian-12"  # one family
gcloud compute images list --project=ubuntu-os-cloud    # all Ubuntu variants

One thing that might bite you

Cloud-init support: the user-data we attach in create_vm only fires if the image ships with cloud-init enabled. The Debian, Ubuntu, Rocky, and AlmaLinux images above all do. The bare CentOS and stripped-down "minimal" images sometimes don't — if your machine never picks up the new user / SSH key after creation, that's the first thing to check.

The message didn't come through — looks like it got cut off after "Here's the message:". Mind pasting it again?

That said, your description ("administrator access" page, claims Compute API isn't enabled when you can see in the console it is) is a near-perfect match for one specific GCP footgun, so I'll guess at it preemptively.

Most likely cause: quota project mismatch

When you use gcloud auth application-default login, the resulting credentials don't know which project to bill API calls to. So Google attributes the call to a separate "quota project" — which is not necessarily the same as the project-id in your machine config. If those don't match, the error message references the quota project (often some default Google-internal one like google.com:cloudsdktool-...), not your actual project. Following the "enable the API" link takes you to that other project, where you legitimately don't have admin rights — hence the "request access from administrator" page.

Fix

Tell ADC to use your project as the quota project:

gcloud auth application-default set-quota-project <your-project-id>

Then re-run machine check. The 403 should go away.

Or just sidestep it

The cleanest fix is to use a service account JSON key (Option A from my earlier reply). Service accounts are bound to a specific project, so there's no quota-project ambiguity, and credentials-file: in your config is unambiguous.

Once you paste the actual error I can confirm — but if it contains the phrase serviceusage.services.use or references a project ID that isn't yours, that's exactly this.

OK — different problem than I guessed. The URL in the error correctly references your project (machine-testing), so it's not a quota-project mismatch. GCP genuinely thinks Compute API isn't enabled on that specific project.

The most likely cause: you enabled it on a different project. This is easy to do because:

1. Project names are display-only and not unique — you might have two projects both displayed as "Machine Testing" with different IDs like machine-testing vs machine-testing-484726.
2. The console "enable API" button always acts on whatever project the dropdown is currently showing, which may not be the one you intended.

Verify from the CLI (more reliable than the console)

gcloud projects list
gcloud services list --enabled --project=machine-testing | grep compute

If the second command returns no rows, the API is genuinely not enabled on this project ID. Enable it explicitly:

gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com --project=machine-testing
gcloud services enable dns.googleapis.com --project=machine-testing

Wait ~30 seconds for propagation, then re-run machine check.

Why the "request access from administrator" page

When you clicked the link in the error, the console probably opened with a different project context (the one your console session was last on, not necessarily machine-testing). On that other project you may not be the owner — hence the access-request page. The CLI commands above sidestep this entirely because they take an explicit --project flag.

Yeah, GCP's onboarding is genuinely rough — you're not imagining it.

The error text didn't come through this time either — looks like it got cut off after "another error:". Can you paste the actual message? I can't diagnose without seeing what gcloud printed.

A couple of common ones in case you can identify it from memory while you re-paste:

• PERMISSION_DENIED: ... permission 'serviceusage.services.enable' denied — your gcloud-logged-in account doesn't have rights to enable APIs on that project. Fix: get the Owner or Service Usage Admin role, or have whoever does it for you.
• The project ... could not be found — the project ID is wrong (a typo, or you're using the project name instead of ID). gcloud projects list will show the actual IDs.
• The caller does not have permission — you're authenticated but as the wrong identity. gcloud auth list shows which account is active; gcloud config set account <email> switches.

Ah, classic GCP confusion — there are two separate logins, and you've only done one. Annoying but real:

You did the second one (per my earlier instructions, so the machine tool would work). Now you're trying to run gcloud itself, which needs the first one.

Fix

gcloud auth login

This opens a browser, you pick the same Google account, done. Then your earlier command will work:

gcloud services list --enabled --project=machine-testing | grep compute
gcloud services enable compute.googleapis.com --project=machine-testing

Why two logins?

Historically, gcloud was for humans typing commands and ADC was for programs running on servers (using service accounts via the metadata server). When Google added "let your local Python script use your personal credentials too," they bolted on a second flow rather than unifying them. So both the gcloud CLI and your Python code each have their own credential store, and you have to log in twice. The error message could absolutely just say "run gcloud auth login or gcloud auth application-default login depending on what you're doing" — but it doesn't.