Developer Connect overview

Developer Connect provides a secure platform for integrating with source-code management tools and getting insights into those connections. For example you can link your private GitHub repository to your Cloud Run service, and automatically trigger builds and deployments upon commits in that repository.

You can configure Developer Connect insights on the same service to get fine-grained deployment insights, such as commit SHAs, to help you troubleshoot incidents.

Developer Connect is designed for application developers, platform administrators, and security managers who want to use source-code management tools with Google Cloud.

Introduction

Developer Connect provides two different types of connections, plus insights on those connections:

  • System connections

    A system connection is a type of Developer Connect connection that connects service accounts to source-code management systems and that doesn't require the user who authorized it to be present when it's invoked. There are two types of system connection:

  • Account connectors (Preview)

    An account connector is a Developer Connect connection that links your Google Account with your individual account with a non-Google provider of source-code management tools.

    You can specify the type of data to be accessed by selecting the appropriate scopes for the connector. After an account connector is created for an organization, users within that organization can use that account connector to authorize Developer Connect to access their individual SCM account on their behalf.

  • Insights

    Developer Connect insights provide additional intelligence about your deployed application. Insights help you diagnose and remediate problems with your applications that might cause outages.

These are described in the following sections.

Git repository connections

A Git repository connection is type of Developer Connect system connection that lets you create and maintain narrowly scoped connections to Git-based repositories on source code management systems outside of Google Cloud.

Use Git repository connections in situations where the user who created the connection doesn't need to be present when that connection is invoked. For example, when a Git repository is connected to your Cloud Build configuration, triggering a build upon a commit to the repository doesn't require you do anything at build time. You just grant your service account permission to use the connection, and the trigger runs upon commit.

With Git repository connections, you can configure bot services in accounts on those SCMs to handle routine tasks like cloning and indexing repositories.

You can use Git repository connections for:

For more information, including use cases and supported product integrations, see Git repository connections.

HTTP connections

HTTP connections are reusable connections to services that are accessible as HTTP endpoints. You grant a service account permission to use this connection, and, Developer Connect handles authentication with the endpoint each time a Google Cloud service accesses it.

Account connectors

An account connector is a Developer Connect feature that helps you connect your Google Cloud account with your individual account on an non-Google Developer Tools provider. Users can specify the type of data to be accessed by the account connector by selecting the appropriate scopes for that connector. Once an account connector connection is created for an organization, users within that organization can use that connection to authorize their individual accounts to be used with that connection.

You can configure an account connector using either a Developer Connect pre-configured OAuth client (for example, GitHub or GitLab), or you can use your own custom OAuth client (for example, an on-premises GitHub Enterprise instance).

For more information, including use cases and supported product integrations, see Account connectors.

The difference between Git repositories connections and account connectors

A Git repository connection is type of Developer Connect system connection that lets you create and maintain narrowly scoped connections to Git-based repositories on source code management systems outside of Google Cloud.

Use Git repository connections in situations where the user who created the connection doesn't need to be present when that connection is invoked. For example, when a Git repository is connected to your Cloud Build configuration, triggering a build upon a commit to the repository doesn't require you do anything at build time. You just grant your service account permission to use the connection, and the trigger runs upon commit.

With Git repository connections, you can configure bot services in accounts on those SCMs to handle routine tasks like cloning and indexing repositories.

Account connectors are connections to source-code management tools, for scenarios in which individual users can be granted permissions to use the connection. These connections are applicable in scenarios in which the user who authorized the connection must be present to invoke it.

Developer Connect insights

Developer Connect insights help you diagnose and remediate problems with your deployed applications.

Developer Connect insights use log entries for deployment events, in Cloud Logging, which give Gemini Cloud Assist information about your runtimes, deployed artifacts, source files, and dependencies.

What's Next