Google Cloud Compute Python API Isn't Accepting My Startup Script - google-cloud-platform

Question

Here is my request body:
server = {
'name': name_gen.haikunate(),
'machineType': f"zones/{zone}/machineTypes/n1-standard-1",
'disks': [
{
'boot': True,
'autoDelete': True,
'initializeParams': {
'sourceImage': 'projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/images/ubuntu-1604-xenial-v20191204'
}
}
],
'networkInterfaces': [
{
'network': '/global/networks/default',
'accessConfigs': [
{'type': 'ONE_TO_ONE_NAT', 'name': 'external nat'}
]
}
],
'metadata': {
'items': [
{
'keys': 'startup-script',
'value': startup_script
}
]
}
When using this request body with the compute object to create a vm, it is giving me this error:
googleapiclient.errors.HttpError:
<HttpError 400 when requesting https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/focal-maker-240918/zones/us-east4-c/instances?alt=json
returned "Invalid value for field 'resource.metadata':
'{
"item": [
{
"value": "#!/bin/bash\n\napt-get update\n\nsleep 15\n\nclear\n\napt-get install squ...'. Metadata invalid keys:">'
How can I fix this error?

Answer 1

If we look at the documentation for setting metadata on a Compute Engine instance found here we see that the structure is:
"items": [
{
"key": string,
"value": string
}
],
if we compare that to your structure described in your post, we see you have coded keys instead of key as the field name. This could easily be the issue. To resolve the problem, change keys to key.