Disclaimer: I work on gcloud-node [1]. :) You're describing the OAuth 2.0 client dance which has always been cumbersome but necessary for browser-side auth. Wi

Disclaimer: I work on gcloud-node [1]. :) You're describing the OAuth 2.0 client dance which has always been cumbersome but necessary for browser-side auth. With Google Cloud Platform related services, you should never have to do this if you're using these services from the context of your server. As someone previously mentioned, Google has Service Accounts which greatly simplifies the auth process. For example, to auth with gcloud-node it's as easy as: 1. Download the key.json associated with your service account. 2. var gcloud = require('gcloud')({ projectId: 'abc-123', keyFilename: './key.json' }); 3. There is no step 3. We've also made some pretty nice docs [2] with clear examples to help you every step of the way. We have yet to integrate Cloud Bigtable but it's on our radar. For a pythonista like yourself, you may like to consider trying gcloud-python [3], and it should go without saying please feel free to file issues or reach out directly with concerns if something just doesn't feel quite right! [1]. https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-node https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-node [2]. http://googlecloudplatform.github.io/gcloud-node/#/docs/ http://googlecloudplatform.github.io/gcloud-node/#/docs/ [3]. https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-python https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/gcloud-python Edit: Formatting.