Google Vertex AI

Updated June 30, 2026

Vertex AI serves Google's Gemini models and Anthropic's Claude models on Google Cloud. Connecting it behind NetBird gives your agents keyless access over the tunnel: NetBird holds the Google credential server-side, ties every request to a real identity from your IdP, and applies your policies, limits, and audit on the way to Vertex.

Unlike API-key providers, Vertex AI authenticates with a Google Cloud service account rather than a single key string. You create the service account in your project, grant it the Vertex AI roles, download a JSON key, and hand that key to NetBird, which stores it encrypted server-side.

Prerequisites

• A Google Cloud project with the Vertex AI API enabled.
• The gcloud CLI authenticated against that project.
• Permission to create service accounts and grant IAM roles in the project.

Set Your Google Cloud Project

gcloud config set project <your-project>

Create a Service Account

Create a dedicated service account for NetBird so its access is scoped and auditable separately from your own credentials:

gcloud iam service-accounts create netbird-vertex \
  --display-name="NetBird Vertex AI"

Grant IAM Roles

The service account needs two roles — one to call Vertex AI models, and one to consume the project's enabled services:

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding <your-project> \
  --member="serviceAccount:netbird-vertex@<your-project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/aiplatform.user"

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding <your-project> \
  --member="serviceAccount:netbird-vertex@<your-project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com" \
  --role="roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageConsumer"

Generate a JSON Key

gcloud iam service-accounts keys create netbird-vertex-key.json \
  --iam-account=netbird-vertex@<your-project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com

If you'd rather paste the key as a single line, base64-encode it first:

cat netbird-vertex-key.json | base64 | pbcopy

Connect the Provider

1. Go to Agent Network → Providers and click Connect Provider.
2. Select Google Vertex AI. NetBird pre-fills the upstream URL (https://aiplatform.googleapis.com) and the correct auth handling for Vertex.
3. Provide the service account key you generated (netbird-vertex-key.json). NetBird stores it encrypted server-side and never returns it to callers.
4. (Optional) Restrict the allowed models and set per-model pricing — for example gemini-2.5-pro, gemini-2.5-flash, claude-sonnet-4-6, or claude-opus-4-7. Leaving the list empty allows any catalog model.
5. Save the provider. The credential is now held server-side — the next step authorizes who can use it.

See Providers for details.

Create a Policy

By default nothing is allowed — a policy must connect a source group to the Vertex AI provider before anyone can route through it.

1. Go to Agent Network → Policies and add a policy.
2. Set the Source to the users or agents who should be able to reach Vertex AI (for example your Engineering group from your IdP).
3. Set the Provider to the Google Vertex AI provider you just connected.
4. Optionally attach per-user or per-group token and budget limits and guardrails such as a model allowlist.

See Policies for details.

Use with Claude Code

To route Claude Code through this Vertex AI provider instead of the Anthropic API, see Use Claude on Vertex AI on the Claude Code integration page.

Manage Service Account Keys

List the keys for the service account, and revoke any you no longer need:

gcloud iam service-accounts keys list \
  --iam-account=netbird-vertex@<your-project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com

gcloud iam service-accounts keys delete <key-id> \
  --iam-account=netbird-vertex@<your-project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com