GCLOUD_PROJECT is deprecared in favor of GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT + avoid using it at all

The sample relies on the GCLOUD_PROJECT environment variable (see https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/nodejs-getting-started/blob/master/2-structured-data/config.js#L27)

However, this variable is now deprecated and is not present in newer versions of the Node.js runtimes for App Engine.

Instead, developers should rely on the GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT environment variable.

[zbjornson]

best practice is to leverage the metadata server present on all GCP runtimes

google-auth-library (for Node.js) forks a process to run gcloud config to get the project ID, and last I looked, it prioritizes that over using the metadata server:

https://github.com/googleapis/google-auth-library-nodejs/blob/37bb8c7cd0a6501103274284d9cddd6816cc881e/src/auth/googleauth.ts#L177-L182

Forking a process isn’t safe on Linux because of https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/25382; we routinely get crashes from the GCP client libs. I think that should be addressed before Google globally recommends not using an env var. An env var is also faster than making a req to the metadata server.

[fhinkel]

Obsolete with planned rewrite of the tutorial.