ADK Cloud Run deployment fails with unrecognized argument '--sandbox-launcher' on gcloud GA track

[KenTandrian]

🔴 Required Information

Describe the Bug:
When deploying an agent to Google Cloud Run using adk deploy cloud_run, the ADK CLI executes gcloud run deploy with a hardcoded --sandbox-launcher flag. However, --sandbox-launcher is not a valid flag on the General Availability (GA) track of gcloud run deploy (it is only supported under gcloud alpha or gcloud beta). As a result, gcloud fails with ERROR: (gcloud.run.deploy) unrecognized arguments: --sandbox-launcher and exit code 2, causing deployment to fail.

Steps to Reproduce:
Please provide a numbered list of steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Install google-adk (version 2.5.0).
2. Run adk deploy cloud_run --project=<PROJECT_ID> --region=<REGION> --service_name=<SERVICE_NAME> --app_name=<APP_NAME> <PATH_TO_AGENT>
3. Observe the deployment failure output from gcloud.

Expected Behavior:
adk deploy cloud_run should either use supported GA flags when executing gcloud run deploy, or invoke gcloud beta run deploy / gcloud alpha run deploy if --sandbox-launcher is required.

Observed Behavior:

Deploying to Cloud Run...
ERROR: (gcloud.run.deploy) unrecognized arguments:
  
 --sandbox-launcher flag is available in one or more alternate release tracks. Try:

  gcloud alpha run deploy --sandbox-launcher
  gcloud beta run deploy --sandbox-launcher

  --sandbox-launcher
  To search the help text of gcloud commands, run:
  gcloud help -- SEARCH_TERMS
Cleaning up the temp folder: /tmp/cloud_run_deploy_src/20260729_221957
Deploy failed: Command '['gcloud', 'run', 'deploy', '<SERVICE_NAME>', '--source', '/tmp/cloud_run_deploy_src/20260729_221957', '--project', '<PROJECT_ID>', '--region', 'asia-southeast1', '--port', '8000', '--verbosity', 'info', '--sandbox-launcher', '--labels', 'created-by=adk']' returned non-zero exit status 2.

Environment Details:

• ADK Library Version (pip show google-adk): 2.5.0
• Desktop OS: macOS
• Python Version (python -V): Python 3.14.0
• Google Cloud SDK Version (gcloud --version): 578.0.0

Model Information:

• Are you using LiteLLM: No
• Which model is being used: Gemini 3.6 Flash (anyway, this is actually a CLI Deployment issue)

---

🟡 Optional Information

Providing this information greatly speeds up the resolution process.

Regression:
5b1088a

Logs:

Deploying to Cloud Run...
ERROR: (gcloud.run.deploy) unrecognized arguments:
  
 --sandbox-launcher flag is available in one or more alternate release tracks. Try:

  gcloud alpha run deploy --sandbox-launcher
  gcloud beta run deploy --sandbox-launcher

  --sandbox-launcher
  To search the help text of gcloud commands, run:
  gcloud help -- SEARCH_TERMS
Cleaning up the temp folder: /tmp/cloud_run_deploy_src/20260729_221957
Deploy failed: Command '['gcloud', 'run', 'deploy', '<SERVICE_NAME>', '--source', '/tmp/cloud_run_deploy_src/20260729_221957', '--project', '<PROJECT_ID>', '--region', 'asia-southeast1', '--port', '8000', '--verbosity', 'info', '--sandbox-launcher', '--labels', 'created-by=adk']' returned non-zero exit status 2.

Screenshots / Video:
N/A

Additional Context:
In google/adk/cli/cli_deploy.py around line 801, to_cloud_run() constructs the command array as follows:

adk-python/src/google/adk/cli/cli_deploy.py

Lines 788 to 803 in 6bab08f

	gcloud_cmd = [
	_GCLOUD_CMD,
	'run',
	'deploy',
	service_name,
	'--source',
	temp_folder,
	'--project',
	project,
	*region_options,
	'--port',
	str(port),
	'--verbosity',
	log_level.lower() if log_level else verbosity,
	'--sandbox-launcher',
	]

Changing _GCLOUD_CMD, 'run', 'deploy' to _GCLOUD_CMD, 'beta', 'run', 'deploy', or removing '--sandbox-launcher', might allows the command to execute successfully.

Minimal Reproduction Code:

adk deploy cloud_run \
  --project=<PROJECT_ID> \
  --region=<REGION> \
  --service_name=<SERVICE_NAME> \
  --app_name=<APP_NAME> \
  ./<AGENT_FOLDER>

How often has this issue occurred?:

• Always (100%)

[abhiramArise]

Thanks for the detailed writeup and for pinpointing the exact block, @KenTandrian — this makes it easy to track down.

I can reproduce this: --sandbox-launcher is unconditionally appended to the gcloud run deploy args regardless of release track, so it always fails on GA gcloud run deploy since that flag only exists under alpha/beta.

I'd like to take this one. Looking at the regression commit (5b1088a), I want to check whether --sandbox-launcher was intentionally added for a specific feature (in which case the fix should switch the command to gcloud beta run deploy) or whether it was added by mistake/copy-paste (in which case it should just be dropped). I'll dig into that context and follow up with a PR — either gating the flag behind a beta-track invocation or removing it outright, plus a regression test in test_cli_deploy_to_cloud_run.py so this doesn't silently reappear.

Will post an update here once I've confirmed the right fix.

[llalitkumarrr]

Hello @abhiramArise,

Thank you for sharing your feedback and for your contribution. We will review it, once all checks pass and the reviewers approve the changes it will be merged. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Hello @KenTandrian,
Could you please take a look at #6514 and let us know if it resolves your issue?

[KenTandrian]

Hi @llalitkumarrr!

Yes, I tested #6514 locally with gcloud (v578.0.0) and can confirm that it resolves the issue:

• Standard deployments (adk deploy cloud_run) now deploy cleanly using gcloud run deploy (GA track) without argument errors.
• Sandbox deployments (adk deploy cloud_run --with_cloud_run_sandbox) work smoothly by routing to gcloud beta run deploy with --sandbox-launcher.

Added my comment on the PR as well. Thank you!