bigquery-basics

BigQuery Basics

BigQuery is a serverless, AI-ready data platform that enables high-speed

analysis of large datasets using SQL and Python. Its disaggregated architecture

separates compute and storage, allowing them to scale independently while

providing built-in machine learning, geospatial analysis, and business

intelligence capabilities.

Setup and Basic Usage

1. Enable the BigQuery API:

    gcloud services enable bigquery.googleapis.com --quiet
    

1. Create a Dataset:

    bq mk --dataset --location=US my_dataset
    

1. Create a Table:

Create a file named schema.json with your table schema:

    [
      {
        "name": "name",
        "type": "STRING",
        "mode": "REQUIRED"
      },
      {
        "name": "post_abbr",
        "type": "STRING",
        "mode": "NULLABLE"
      }
    ]
    

Then create the table with the bq tool:

    bq mk --table my_dataset.mytable schema.json
    

1. Run a Query:

    bq query --use_legacy_sql=false \
    'SELECT name FROM `bigquery-public-data.usa_names.usa_1910_2013` \
    WHERE state = "TX" LIMIT 10'
    

Reference Directory

• [Core Concepts](references/core-concepts.md): Storage types, analytics

workflows, and BigQuery Studio features.

• [Change History](references/change-history.md): Tracking and querying

incremental table changes using APPENDS and CHANGES.

• [Continuous Queries](references/continuous-queries.md): Running continuous

SQL statements to analyze incoming data in real time.

• [CLI Usage](references/cli-usage.md): Essential bq command-line tool

operations for managing data and jobs.

• [Client Libraries](references/client-library-usage.md): Using Google Cloud

client libraries for Python, Java, Node.js, and Go.

• [MCP Usage](references/mcp-usage.md): Using the BigQuery remote MCP server and

Gemini CLI extension.

• [Infrastructure as Code](references/iac-usage.md): Terraform examples for

datasets, tables, and reservations.

• [IAM & Security](references/iam-security.md): Roles, permissions, and data

governance best practices.

*If you need product information not found in these references, use the

Developer Knowledge MCP server search_documents tool.*

Related Skills

• [BigQuery AI & ML Skill](../bigquery-ai-ml):

SKILL.md file for BigQuery AI and ML capabilities (forecast, anomaly

detection, text generation).