Get a working bigtable emulator in your local environment

This one is pretty simple.

Step 1: Run the emulator and prepare the environment

# Get the emulator running
gcloud beta emulators bigtable start \
 --host-port=localhost:9000
# Let cbt know where to connect to
$(gcloud beta emulators bigtable env-init)
# ^ will set the BIGTABLE_EMULATOR_HOST variable

Step 2: Connect to it

cbt ls
# >
cbt -project fake-project -instance fake-instance \
 createtable some-table
# >
cbt ls
some-table

Step 3: Profit

There it is. Change the config on whatever client you're using and you're good to go.