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`subprocess.Popen` essentially runs your shell script in its own shell process. I don’t know much about `gcloud auth`If `gcloud auth` is simply setting env vars, that won’t work with triggering Pulumi commands via automation SDK in Python since Pulumi won’t “see” those environment vars. You will have to find a way to set authentication context that persists beyond just the shell script’s environment and is available/accessible in the Python `venv` when Pulumi runs as well.

Hi <@UDE2DCFT3> thanks for the reply. What I am unable to find anywhere in the documents is what should be the value of the PULUMI_ACCESS_TOKEN if I use my own managed backend. I am not sure what values I should even set for this, and if I set the BACKEND_URL env var alone its throwing an error wrt to authentication

after setting the backend url i get this error which am not sure if its an error from pulumi or google and how to resolve it…
`code: 255 stdout: stderr: error: missing google credentials`

&gt; What I am unable to find anywhere in the documents is what should be the value of the `PULUMI_ACCESS_TOKEN` if I use my own managed backend. I am not sure what values I should even set for this
That should be your Pulumi account’s <https://www.pulumi.com/docs/intro/console/accounts/#access-tokens|access token>. Is your `BACKEND_URL` self-managed, or are you using our service (`<https://api.pulumi.com>`)? You can access the Access Tokens page for your Pulumi account by going to <https://app.pulumi.com/account/tokens>

my backend url is self managed, its a gcp bucket

what would be the access token for self managed backend ?

&gt; my backend url is self managed, its a gcp bucket
&gt; what would be the access token for self managed backend ?
Ah yes I see that you mentioned that in your original message. There is no need for a Pulumi access token for self-managed backends. The issue here is that your Pulumi does not “see” the Google credentials you are setting via `subprocess.Popen` as I mentioned here <https://pulumi-community.slack.com/archives/C01PF3E1B8V/p1621988033086700?thread_ts=1621983858.086600&amp;cid=C01PF3E1B8V>

You can verify if your gcloud credentials are accessible by adding a debug message in your Python that prints out an env var that you set via the shell script. That’ll show you whether or not any of the env vars you are setting via the script are persisting in the environment.