This tutorial guides users on how to create a virtual machine (VM) on Google Cloud Compute Engine and connect it to their CLI using SSH on macOS or Linux machines. The article begins by explaining the prerequisites, including having a Google Cloud account and gcloud CLI installed on your machine. It then delves into creating a VM instance on Google Cloud Compute Engine and connecting to that VM from your CLI using SSH. Two methods are covered: manually configuring key-based SSH authentication and using the gcloud command-line tool, which automatically manages the SSH key. The tutorial concludes with a note to always shut down VM instances after use to avoid being charged.