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How to create a Google Maps API key with an API (not through the UI)?

Is there a way to programmatically create a Google Maps API key? I googled this but couldn't find a straightforward answer.

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Solution

  • As of Nov 2023, you can programmatically create API keys with Google Cloud's CLI (gcloud).

    You can use gcloud locally or as part of your CI/CD pipelines, e.g. in Github Actions.

    Once you've got gcloud installed, authenticate and set the corresponding account + project:

    gcloud config set account [email protected]
gcloud config set project my-project-name

    After that, look into the services api-keys create command. Right now it's only available in beta/alpha but it gets the job done:

    gcloud beta services api-keys create \
  --display-name="Frontend API key - Prod" \
  --allowed-referrers="https://*.example.com/*" \
  --api-target=service=places.googleapis.com,service=maps.googleapis.com

    To retrieve the list of available services (Maps and other GCP APIs) to pass in --api-target, run:

    gcloud services list --available --filter="name:googleapis.com"

    💡 For each gcloud CLI operation, there's usually a REST call at your disposal. I couldn't find create but here are the docs for the list command. From this you can try to derive the create call - perhaps it's already implemented but not yet documented?

    To learn more about API keys, read the Google guide or this chapter of my Google Maps Handbook.