Create the service account and HMAC key

The final stage on the Google Cloud side. You create an identity for Sliick Files, give it access to the one bucket, and generate the key pair it signs requests with.

1. Create a service account

Service accounts are Google Cloud’s equivalent of an “application identity”: non-human, used by integrations like Sliick. The HMAC key in the next step is tied to a service account, not a person.

1. In the console search bar, type Service Accounts and open the page, under IAM & Admin.
2. Click Create service account.
3. Service account name - sliick-files-app (or similar). Service account ID auto-fills from the name.
4. Description - optional, for example “Sliick Files HMAC identity for bucket YOUR-BUCKET-NAME”.
5. Click Create and continue.
6. Grant this service account access to project - leave blank. Bucket-level access comes next, and it is more restrictive than project-level.
7. Click Continue, then Done.

2. Grant the service account access to the bucket

1. Go back to Cloud Storage → Buckets and click your bucket name.
2. Open the Permissions tab and click Grant access.
3. New principals - paste the service account’s email address. It looks like sliick-files-app@your-project-id.iam.gserviceaccount.com, and is shown on the service accounts list.
4. Select a role - search for and pick Storage Object User (roles/storage.objectUser). This grants read, create, and delete on objects in this bucket only, with no project-level or cross-bucket access.
5. Click Save.

3. Generate the HMAC key

Google Cloud Storage supports two authentication modes: native OAuth (Bearer tokens) and HMAC (AWS-S3-style signed requests). Sliick uses HMAC because it lets the same signing work across S3, R2, and Google Cloud Storage.

1. In the console search bar, type Interoperability and open Cloud Storage → Settings → Interoperability. Alternatively, open Cloud Storage → Settings, then the Interoperability tab.
2. If you see a prompt Select a default project, set it to the current project. HMAC key creation requires this even though it does not change anything you care about.
3. Scroll to Access keys for service accounts and click Create a key for a service account.
4. Pick the sliick-files-app service account from step 1.
5. Click Create key.
6. You will see the Access key and Secret.

Copy both now. The secret is shown exactly once. If you close this page without copying it, you must delete the key and create a new one. Paste them into a password manager, or keep the tab open until you have connected in Sliick Settings.

4. Optional: check the bucket

gcloud storage ls gs://YOUR-BUCKET-NAME

This should return without error; empty output is fine, because the bucket is empty. It uses your gcloud auth login identity rather than the HMAC key, but it confirms the bucket name and project link are right.

What you now have

The four values you need for Salesforce:

• HMAC Access Key and HMAC Secret (this page)
• Bucket Name and Region code (from Create the project and bucket)

Next: Salesforce setup.