Compute Engine API

Name: Compute Engine API API
Brand: Compute Engine API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecCloud InfrastructureComputeoauth2802 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Provision VMs, disks, networks, firewalls, and load balancers on Google Cloud across more than 800 endpoints. Lets agents stand up and operate full Compute Engine infrastructure programmatically.

Quickstart

Get started with Compute Engine API in minutes using your preferred integration method.

# Add to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf)
{
  "jentic": {
    "url": "https://api.jentic.com/mcp",
    "auth": "oauth"
  }
}

# Then ask your agent:
"create a google cloud vm"

# → Jentic returns the GET /events tool with parameter schema, agent executes.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Compute Engine API API.

Create, start, stop, reset, and delete VM instances per zone

Take incremental snapshots of persistent disks and restore disks from snapshots

Configure VPC networks, subnets, firewall rules, and routes

Resize and roll out updates to managed instance groups

Provision global HTTP load balancers with backend services and URL maps

GET STARTED

Start building with Compute Engine API API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Compute Engine API API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Programmatic VM Provisioning

Create Compute Engine VMs from automation, CI/CD pipelines, or platform tooling without going through the Cloud Console. The instances.insert endpoint accepts the machine type, image, network, and metadata, and the API returns a long-running operation that resolves once the VM is RUNNING. This is the core building block for self-service developer environments and ephemeral build runners.

Create a VM named build-runner-42 in us-central1-a from image debian-12 with machine type n1-standard-2 and the default VPC

Managed Instance Group Autoscaling

Operate managed instance groups that scale a stateless web service in response to load. The API exposes resize, recreateInstances, and policy update endpoints so platform teams can codify scale events, rolling restarts, and version rollouts without manual clicks. Most teams keep the autoscaler in charge for normal load and use the API only for surgical interventions.

Resize managed instance group projects/acme/regions/us-central1/instanceGroupManagers/web from 4 to 12 and wait for the operation to complete

Network And Firewall Codification

Define VPCs, subnets, firewall rules, and routes through the API so the network topology is codified rather than clicked together. Compute Engine exposes networks, subnetworks, firewalls, and routers under one API, which keeps Terraform-style automation, drift detection, and disaster recovery rebuilds straightforward.

Create a firewall rule allow-https in the default network that permits TCP/443 from 0.0.0.0/0 to instances tagged web-server

Disk Snapshot Backup And Restore

Snapshot persistent disks on a schedule and restore from them to recover from accidental deletions or corruption. The disks.createSnapshot endpoint takes an incremental snapshot stored in Cloud Storage, and disks.insert with sourceSnapshot creates a new disk from any prior snapshot, giving operators a fast point-in-time recovery path.

Take a snapshot of disk projects/acme/zones/us-central1-a/disks/db-data named db-data-2026-06-10 and store it in the default project

Agent-Driven Infrastructure Operations

An AI agent can run controlled infrastructure operations — restart a stuck VM, expand a disk, or open a firewall port for a debug session — by calling Compute Engine through Jentic. Because Jentic returns the operation schema, the agent can target the exact endpoint it needs out of the 800+ surface area without parsing the discovery doc.

Use Jentic to call instances.reset on projects/acme/zones/us-central1-a/instances/api-server-3 and poll the returned operation until DONE

Key Endpoints

802 endpoints — the compute engine api creates and runs virtual machines on google cloud platform and is one of the largest control surfaces in gcp, covering instances, instance groups, disks, images, networks, subnetworks, firewalls, load balancers, routers, vpns, and global networking primitives.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances

Create a VM instance in a zone

GET

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances

List VM instances in a zone

POST

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances/{instance}/reset

Hard-reset a running VM instance

POST

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/disks/{disk}/createSnapshot

Snapshot a persistent disk for backup

POST

/projects/{project}/global/firewalls

Create a firewall rule on a VPC network

POST

/projects/{project}/regions/{region}/instanceGroupManagers/{instanceGroupManager}/resize

Resize a managed instance group

POST

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances

Create a VM instance in a zone

GET

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances

List VM instances in a zone

POST

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances/{instance}/reset

Hard-reset a running VM instance

POST

/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/disks/{disk}/createSnapshot

Snapshot a persistent disk for backup

POST

/projects/{project}/global/firewalls

Create a firewall rule on a VPC network

Why though Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Google OAuth 2.0 refresh tokens for Compute Engine are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents receive only scoped short-lived access tokens, and VM-level service account credentials stay attached to the VM rather than transiting through the agent.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic with intents like 'create gcp vm' or 'add firewall rule' and Jentic returns the specific operation out of Compute Engine's 800+ endpoint surface along with its request schema.

Time to first call

Direct integration with Compute Engine: 3-10 days to learn the relevant resource subset, OAuth, and long-running operation polling. Through Jentic: under 1 hour for a focused task — search, load schema, execute.

Related APIs

Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.

Alternative

Kubernetes Engine API

Managed Kubernetes instead of raw VMs

Use GKE when workloads are containerised and need orchestration; use Compute Engine when you need raw VMs with full OS control

Alternative

Cloud Run Admin API

Serverless containers without managing VMs at all

Use Cloud Run when the workload is a stateless container and you do not want to operate VMs; use Compute Engine when you need persistent OS-level access

Complementary

Identity and Access Management (IAM) API

Manages the service accounts and roles attached to Compute Engine VMs

Use IAM API to mint the service account a VM runs as before creating the VM via Compute Engine

FAQs

Specific to using Compute Engine API API through Jentic.

What authentication does the Compute Engine API use?

It uses Google OAuth 2.0 with scopes such as https://www.googleapis.com/auth/compute and the broader cloud-platform scope. Through Jentic the OAuth credentials are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault and the agent receives only short-lived access tokens at execution time.

Can I create and start a VM with a single API call?

Yes. Send a POST to /compute/v1/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances with the machine type, source image, network interface, and metadata. The endpoint returns a long-running operation that resolves once the VM transitions to RUNNING.

What are the rate limits for the Compute Engine API?

Compute Engine enforces per-project read and write quotas per minute, with regional resource quotas (CPUs, IPs, disks) governing actual provisioning. Heavy automation should batch reads, use list pagination, and respect the operation polling backoff so you do not exhaust the per-minute control-plane budget.

How do I provision a VM through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'create gcp vm', load the instances.insert schema, and execute the call against /compute/v1/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/instances with the machine type, source image, and network. Jentic returns the schema so the agent fills only the required fields out of Compute Engine's 800+ endpoint surface.

Is the Compute Engine API free?

The API has no per-call charge — you pay only for the underlying resources you create such as VM-hours, persistent disks, and egress. Free-tier credits cover small e2-micro instances in eligible regions.

How do I take a disk snapshot for backup?

Call POST on /compute/v1/projects/{project}/zones/{zone}/disks/{disk}/createSnapshot with a name and labels. Snapshots are incremental and stored in Cloud Storage, and a new disk can be created from any snapshot via disks.insert with sourceSnapshot.