# bigtable-basics

> Claude/Codex skill by [@googlecloudplatform](https://omgskills.com/library/googlecloudplatform/index.md) · 226 stars · Updated 2026-10-23

Assists in provisioning instances/tables, designing performant schemas, and querying data in Bigtable. Use when designing Bigtable row keys, configuring column families, writing SQL queries or client library code (Java, Go, Python) for Bigtable, or diagnosing performance/hotspotting issues. Also use when provisioning Bigtable clusters using gcloud or cbt CLIs. Don't use for generic Cloud SQL administration.

## Install

```sh
git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/data-agent-kit-plugin /tmp/data-agent-kit-plugin && ln -s /tmp/data-agent-kit-plugin/skills/bigtable-basics ~/.claude/skills/bigtable-basics
```

## From README

Bigtable Basics This skill provides core workflows and guidance for administering and developing with Google Bigtable. Core Principles Control Plane vs. Data Plane: Use gcloud for Control Plane & DDL operations: Manage Instances, Clusters, App Profiles, Backups, and IAM. Manage schemas: Create, update, and delete Tables, Column Families, Logical Views, Materialized Views, and Authorized Views. Use cbt for Data Plane operations: Reading, writing, and inspecting data. Performance First: Bigtable is a NoSQL database. Efficiency is tied to Row Key design. Always warn about Full Table Scans. Client Selection: For production use cases, prefer Java or Go for their superior performance and feature coverage compared to other languages. Observability: When diagnosing performance or hotspotting, always mention Key Visualizer (via Cloud Console) as the primary diagnostic tool because it provides the most granular view of access patterns across row keys.

## Links

- HTML page: https://omgskills.com/library/googlecloudplatform/data-agent-kit-plugin/skills/bigtable-basics/
- GitHub: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/data-agent-kit-plugin
- Author: [@googlecloudplatform](https://omgskills.com/library/googlecloudplatform/index.md)

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