cbt

List all tables in an instance

$ cbt -project [project_id] -instance [instance_id] ls

$ cbt -project [project_id] -instance [instance_id] read [table_name]

$ cbt -project [project_id] -instance [instance_id] count [table_name]

$ cbt -project [project_id] -instance [instance_id] createtable [table_name]

$ cbt -project [project_id] -instance [instance_id] createfamily [table_name] [family_name]

$ cbt -project [project_id] -instance [instance_id] set [table_name] [row_key] [family]:[column]=[value]

cbt [-project project] [-instance instance] [-creds file] [-timeout duration] command [arguments...]

cbt is a command-line interface for Google Cloud Bigtable, a fully managed NoSQL database service. It allows performing administrative and data operations on Bigtable instances, tables, column families, and rows.
The tool can be configured via a ~/.cbtrc file containing project and instance defaults, or by passing flags directly.

-project projectid_

Google Cloud project ID. Uses gcloud default if unset

Cloud Bigtable instance name

Path to credentials JSON file

Operation timeout (e.g., 10s, 5m)

The cbt CLI does not implement smart retries or advanced error handling. For production environments, use a Bigtable client library or the Google Cloud console instead.
Bash shell syntax rules apply: values with spaces or operators require quotes, and arbitrary byte values need dollar-sign prefix with single quotes.

The cbt tool was developed by Google as part of the Cloud Bigtable ecosystem, written in Go using the official Go client library for Bigtable. It provides a quick way to interact with Bigtable for development and debugging purposes.

gcloud(1), bq(1)