gplay setup (auth onboarding)

Get gplay talking to the Google Play Developer API. This skill covers the auth namespace end to end; for the conventions every command shares (credential resolution order, exit codes, output), see gplay-cli-usage.

The credential

gplay authenticates as a Google Cloud service account with the Android Publisher role, invited to your Play Console. You supply its JSON key one of three ways (resolution order in gplay-cli-usage):

• GPLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT — a path to the JSON file or the inline

JSON itself (handy for CI secrets).

• --service-account <path-or-json> on any command — overrides the env.
• A stored Account registered with gplay auth login (the credential

lands in the OS keystore — see gplay auth status for where).

First-run flow

bash
# 1. Register the service account as the active Account.
gplay auth login --service-account ./service_account.json

# 2. Confirm what gplay will use, and where the credential lives.
gplay auth status

# 3. Run ordered diagnostics (credential valid? scopes? developer id?).
gplay auth doctor

auth status prints the active Account, the keystore backend, and the credential's location. auth doctor runs ordered checks and is the first thing to reach for when an authenticated command fails — it pinpoints whether the problem is a bad key (exit 10) or a service account that is valid but not invited on the app/account (exit 11).

Managing stored accounts

bash
gplay auth list                     # every registered Account
gplay auth logout <name> --confirm  # remove an Account from the config + keystore

auth logout removes a stored credential, so it is --confirm-gated like every destructive write (missing → exit 3, naming the flag).

Use --account <name> on later commands to target a specific stored Account when you have more than one. Confirm the exact flags with gplay auth <command> --help — this skill does not freeze them.

Verify, then hand off

Once gplay auth doctor is green, auth is done. The next step is to make gplay aware of an app to act on:

> → Continue with the gplay-apps skill to register a package > (gplay apps add <package>) and pin it to the repo (gplay init).

From there, gplay-release-flow, gplay-tracks, gplay-reviews, gplay-metadata-sync, gplay-compliance, and gplay-team all assume a working credential set up here.