Google-cloud-python: [Question] Can't find documentation on whether any functions require active internet connection, or if all functions can be performed entirely offline

[joshjacobson]

Quite a basic question... I just can't find any reference in the documentation as to what aspects of this function offline, and which require a connection.

[dhermes]

@joshjacobson Can you be more specific?

In general, constructors and factory methods that call constructors don't require network. In addition setting and getting attributes won't surprise you by making an API call. Essentially every other method will talk to the network.

Client constructors may perform disk I/O to determine your default credentials. On GCE, they may actually perform local network I/O to talk to the metadata server.

[tseaver]

@joshjacobson The google-cloud-<api> libraries are entirely aimed at providing access from Python to the various Google Cloud APIs. There is pretty much no value in them for apps which run unconnected.