Export from XKCD to GCS

CloudQuery is an open-source data integration platform that allows you to export data from any source to any destination.

The CloudQuery XKCD plugin allows you to sync data from XKCD to any destination, including GCS. It's free, open source, requires no account, and takes only minutes to get started.

Ready? Let's dive right in!

Step 1. Install the CloudQuery CLI

The CloudQuery CLI is a command-line tool that runs the sync. It supports MacOS, Linux and Windows.

brew install cloudquery/tap/cloudquery

Step 2. Configure the XKCD source plugin

Create a configuration file for the XKCD plugin and set up authentication.

XKCD is a community plugin, which means that it is maintained by the CloudQuery community. Create a file called xkcd.yaml, then copy the example and follow the instructions in the XKCD Plugin Documentation ↗ to fit your needs.

Step 3. Configure the GCS destination plugin

Create a configuration file for the GCS plugin and set up authentication.

Configuration

Create a file called gcs.yaml and add the following contents:

This example configures a GCS destination, to create CSV files in gcs://bucket_name/path/to/files.

kind: destination
spec:
  name: "gcs"
  path: "cloudquery/gcs"
  version: "v3.4.9"
  spec:
    bucket: "bucket_name"
    path: "path/to/files"
    format: "csv" # options: parquet, json, csv
    format_spec:
      # CSV-specific parameters:
      # delimiter: ","
      # skip_header: false

    # Optional parameters
    # compression: "" # options: gzip
    # no_rotate: false
    # batch_size: 10000
    # batch_size_bytes: 52428800 # 50 MiB
    # batch_timeout: 30s

Note that the GCS plugin only supports append write-mode. The (top level) spec section is described in the Destination Spec Reference.

Fine-tune this configuration to match your needs. For more information, see the GCS Plugin ↗ page in the docs.

Authentication

The GCS plugin authenticates using your Application Default Credentials (opens in a new tab). Available options are all the same options described here (opens in a new tab) in detail:

Local Environment:

gcloud auth application-default login (recommended when running locally)

Google Cloud cloud-based development environment:

When you run on Cloud Shell or Cloud Code credentials are already available.

Google Cloud containerized environment:

When running on GKE use workload identity (opens in a new tab).

Google Cloud services that support attaching a service account (opens in a new tab):

Services such as Compute Engine, App Engine and functions supporting attaching a user-managed service account which will CloudQuery will be able to utilize.

On-premises or another cloud provider

The suggested way is to use Workload identity federation (opens in a new tab)
If not available you can always use service account keys and export the location of the key via GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS. (Not recommended as long-lived keys are a security risk)

Step 4. Start the Sync

Run the following command in your terminal to start the sync

cloudquery sync xkcd.yaml gcs.yaml

And away we go! 🚀 The sync will run until completion, fetching all selected tables from XKCD. Any errors will be logged to a file called cloudquery.log.