Cloud Logging Finops

Non-interactive runs. When no user can answer (e.g. a scheduled or automated run), ask nothing: audit the project named in the request, or the active gcloud project; use --billing-mode=search; cover all five report topics (Step 2.5); and never enable an API or upgrade a log bucket. Put anything that needed a user (a disabled API, a missing role, the upgrade advisory) in the report instead.

Usage Attribution

MUST READ: Before executing any gcloud, REST API, or MCP command, you MUST read and follow the instructions in Usage Attribution.

Step 0: Locate the Cloud Billing Export

The audit covers one Google Cloud project, {project_id}: the project the user names or, if they don't name one, the active gcloud project (gcloud config get project), confirmed with the user.

Discover everything else (log buckets, Observability Analytics, sinks, exclusions, metrics) yourself; never ask the user about those. The billing export is the exception: finding it unaided can mean scanning every project on the billing account, so ask once, before running anything, and don't start a search until the user has chosen answer 3 (single-select, using the host's question tool if it has one):

Do you know where the Cloud Billing export for {project_id} is?

1. Yes — here it is (the BigQuery table ID project.dataset.table, or just the project and dataset)
2. There's no billing export for this project
3. No / not sure — search for it (seconds on a small project; on a large billing account it can take a long time)

Answer	Flags	Cost figures
1	--billing-mode=explicit plus --billing-table (or --billing-project/--billing-dataset)	invoiced
2	--billing-mode=none	list-price estimates
3	--billing-mode=search (default)	invoiced if found, else estimates

Answer 3's search has no time limit: it checks {project_id} first (usually under 10 s, 1–2 min with many tables), then every project on its billing account (can take many minutes; progress prints every 30 s). Tell the user this before launching. If the wait is unacceptable, offer to switch to answer 1 (they look up the table) or answer 2 (skip the export and use list-price estimates). Don't suggest setting up an export to make the search faster.

If the search found an export, tell the user: "Next time, pass --billing-table=<table> and discovery drops to about two seconds."

Step 1: Environment Setup

Check these prerequisites before Step 2; fix only what is missing:

• gcloud: if gcloud is not installed, follow https://docs.cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install-sdk.md.txt.
• Project: run gcloud config get project; if it isn't {project_id} (from Step 0), run gcloud config set project {project_id}.
• Credentials: the scripts use Application Default Credentials. Run gcloud auth application-default login, or set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to a service account key.
• Billing: the project must have an active billing account attached.
• APIs: don't enable APIs up front; the Logging, Monitoring, BigQuery and Observability APIs are on by default in new projects. Only if the collector reports an API as disabled (SERVICE_DISABLED, "has not been used in project"), name it, ask the user, and on approval run gcloud services enable {api} --project={project_id} (tagged as described below):
  • logging, monitoring: required; without them there is nothing to audit.
  • bigquery: invoiced costs from the billing export.
  • observability: resolves the project's default log scope, so log samples match what Logs Explorer shows.
  • cloudasset, cloudbilling: only answer 3's search across the billing account.

IAM roles for the identity running the audit. The skill never grants roles: the scripts run with the user's own credentials and read only what those credentials can. When a step fails on permissions, its advisory names the step; tell the user which role below it needs:

Role	Needed for
roles/logging.viewer, roles/monitoring.viewer	Every audit: log buckets, sinks, log samples, volume metrics
roles/bigquery.jobUser, roles/bigquery.dataViewer (on the export dataset)	Invoiced costs from the billing export
roles/logging.viewAccessor on log views in other projects	Reading samples through a default log scope that includes them
roles/cloudasset.viewer, roles/billing.viewer (billing account)	--billing-mode=search across the billing account
roles/logging.configWriter	Only the optional Observability Analytics upgrade (Step 3B)

[ -f /tmp/finops_venv/bin/python ] || (uv venv /tmp/finops_venv && uv pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt --python /tmp/finops_venv/bin/python)

The bundled scripts tag their Google Cloud API requests. For commands you run yourself, follow Usage Attribution.

Step 2: Data Collection

Start the collector below as a background process (it takes from seconds to many minutes), then go to Step 2.5 while it runs:

/tmp/finops_venv/bin/python scripts/collect_logging_data.py \
  --project-id {project_id} --billing-mode={none|explicit|search}

Optional: --billing-project, --billing-dataset, --billing-table (e.g. billing-proj.ds.gcp_billing_export_v1_XXXX or a curated FinOps view).

Outputs: logging_usage_summary.json, monthly_details/, service_details/, and [FINOPS ADVISORY] lines (see Step 3). The collector's output ends with a [COLLECTION PROFILE] table of per-stage timings; if the run took longer than the times in Step 0, or the user asks why the audit took so long, read that table before guessing.

Step 2.5: Ask What the Report Is For

Always ask this while the collector runs (multi-select). If the user skips it, cover all five topics:

What should this report answer?

• Where is the money going — attribution by service and stream
• Is spend growing — trends and projection
• What can I safely turn off — concrete savings actions
• What are these logs actually saying — noisiest patterns and samples
• Severity and audit-log posture

The user's choices decide which outputs you read in depth and what your summary leads with; they never change what the collector gathers:

Interest	Read deeply
Attribution	service_details/*.json, daily_services
Growth	monthly_details/*.json, mom_patterns, cost_projection
Savings actions	reduction_actions, extraneous_spend
What logs say	severity_summary.samples_by_service, granular_analytics.top_signatures (Observability Analytics only)
Severity / audit	severity_summary, withheld-rule reasons

Your narrative goes in insights/executive_summary.html (see Executive Summary Authoring). You don't write the savings actions: the generated report's Cost Optimizer tab lists them from reduction_actions.

[!CAUTION] Never edit assets/report_template.html.

Step 3: Follow the Advisories

A. Tell the User What the Cost Figures Are Based On

[!IMPORTANT] Unless figures are invoiced (billing_metadata.invoiced), tell the user in plain language where you looked, what you found, and what the numbers are based on. Keep internals (stage numbers, mode names, HTTP codes, "quota project", "Cloud Asset Inventory") in the log and billing_metadata.fallback_chain.

• Answer 1, the location gave no costs (explicit_table or explicit_scope step not found): the collector never searches beyond what the user named. Tell them what was wrong, from the step's detail (no rows for this project, no export table there, or the query failed), that costs are list-price estimates, and offer to rerun with a corrected location or with answer 3.
• Answer 2 (user_declared_no_export): "I didn't search — you told me there's no billing export — so costs are list-price estimates, not invoiced amounts." Never call a skipped search exhausted.
• Answer 3, found nothing (billing_account status not_found): "I searched this project and your billing account and found no billing export. Costs are list-price estimates (quote each SKU's price and free tier from pricing.skus) over a trailing 30 days." Only this case supports recommending export setup. Cite the official pricing page (https://cloud.google.com/products/observability/pricing) as the source of list prices.
• Answer 3, search failed on permissions (any step status inconclusive): tell the user the lookup couldn't complete, so costs are estimates. Never tell them no billing export exists; the search didn't finish.
• Answer 3, this project's table rejected (local_project status no_project_records): "This project has a billing export, but it holds no records for this project, so I searched the rest of the billing account." Then report the outcome of that wider search as above.
• Partial history: months are labelled actual_bq_billing or usage_estimated; state the exact date boundary in the executive summary.

When on list pricing, recommend export for accuracy: future audits would use the actual invoice, including discounts, over multiple months.

B. Observability Analytics

Observability Analytics was formerly called Log Analytics; the scripts' advisories and field names still use the old name.

• Disabled: present the advisory, including that upgrading the log bucket is irreversible, then end your reply with a direct question, e.g. "Do you want me to upgrade the _Default log bucket to Observability Analytics? This can't be undone." Telling the user how to run it themselves is not asking. Only after they approve upgrading that log bucket, run /tmp/finops_venv/bin/python scripts/enable_log_analytics.py --project-id {project_id}. The audit proceeds on Cloud Monitoring either way.

[!CAUTION] Never run enable_log_analytics.py or gcloud logging buckets update --enable-analytics in the same turn you raise the advisory, or on general permission like "do whatever you need".

• < 24 hours old: the 14-day Cloud Monitoring baseline is used until samples accumulate (~1–2 hours).
• 1–13 days: cite the sample window in the report.
• ≥ 14 days: full SQL analytics.
• Representative logs unavailable advisory: samples are missing because your environment can't read log entries (needs roles/logging.viewer), not because streams are empty. Relay the error and role; per-stream detail is in severity_summary.sample_errors.
• Samples empty but the stream has volume: samples are read through the project's default log scope, like Logs Explorer (analytics_metadata.log_read_scope). If its source is project and it has a note, the scope couldn't be resolved, so logs held outside this project's log buckets weren't read. Say that and relay the note; never say the stream has no logs.

C. Measurement Integrity

[!CAUTION] Never quote cost or volume derived from Observability Analytics payload byte sums; they overstate billed volume about 2x.

Question	Source
Cost, GiB ingested	Billing export (billing.query_logging_billing_costs, daily_gib, monthly_costs)
Service mix	logging.googleapis.com/billing/bytes_ingested (resource_type)
Log stream / severity volume	logging.googleapis.com/byte_count (log, severity)
Severity mix, entry content	Observability Analytics SQL (constants.PAYLOAD_BYTES_SQL)

• Totals come from the invoice when it exists; metrics only supply shares. Never put a metric-derived total next to an invoiced one.
• byte_count (received) and billing/bytes_ingested (billed) differ by ~1.5x or more; never divide one by the other.
• If telemetry_integrity.status is degraded, say dips on the listed days look like a metric defect that won't self-correct, and repeat the limits in telemetry_integrity.note. Never claim with certainty that nothing changed.
• A month with is_partial: true is month-to-date. Label it so, and never call it a complete month or "last month".

D. Extraneous Spend

extraneous_spend.headline is a conservative floor: the sum of the reduction_actions.actions with counted: true (duplicate bucket routing, flow-log sampling, DEBUG logs, stale exclusions), each priced on exactly what its remedy removes. Everything else is surfaced, never counted: over-retention (not quantified), sampled exclusion rules (estimates), and Data Access audit logs (in withheld).

1. Report it as a floor (≥ X%), never a point estimate or "up to".
2. If status is insufficient_data, give no figure — not a guess, a benchmark, or $0.
3. Quote any action's flag verbatim; it is written for the reader.
4. Uncounted actions and uncounted_total_pct may be mentioned as upside, never added to the headline.
5. If headline.exceeds_sanity_ceiling, say the headline isn't reliable, name the largest counted action, and flag it for manual review. Offer no number.
6. If inventory_unavailable is non-empty, say log sink, exclusion and flow-log actions weren't checked; never say none exist.
7. Whenever Data Access audit logs come up (a withheld entry, or the user names them), say they are left out of the number because they need a compliance decision: disabling or excluding them is frequently prohibited by compliance or security policy, so the owner must confirm before acting.

E. Exclusion Filters and Actions

• Only Cost Optimizer actions carry filters and savings; Service Details volumes are not savings. Report sample_coverage.shown_pct.
• Quote an action's monthly figures (monthly_gib, monthly_usd), never a rule's sample-window GiB (granular_analytics.exclusion_candidates).
• rule_scope: stream drops every log entry of that severity in the stream; say so.
• If refused_claims is non-empty, name the streams the safety gate removed.

Never offered as actions: CRITICAL/ALERT/EMERGENCY (incident signal), free _Required streams ($0, audit retention), Data Access audit logs (often compliance-mandated; report, never count), and streams with no measured volume.

[!CAUTION] Hand-written exclusion filters must: include a severity predicate (severity = "DEFAULT" for DEFAULT — omitting it matches everything); use the URL-encoded log ID (compute.googleapis.com%2Ffirewall); never embed unescaped log text or rotating tokens (UUIDs, IPs, long integers, times) in a regex; and respect the list above.

Step 4: Build and Deliver the Report

/tmp/finops_venv/bin/python scripts/build_report.py --summary logging_usage_summary.json --insights-dir insights/ --output log_usage_report.html

build_report.py writes an executive summary unless you provide insights/executive_summary.html.

Give the user one link that, when clicked, opens the fully rendered report — not raw HTML, not a missing file — from wherever the user actually is. Confirm that will happen before you post it.

Then list what they can explore (charts, service drilldowns, ranked actions with copyable filters, ✓ Prove It drawers) and suggest 3–4 follow-up questions drawn from this project's data, phrased to ask as-is.

If the user asked something specific, answer it directly with both GiB and USD, from monthly_aggregations (latest_complete_month names the newest whole month; each month's top_service is its Top Cost Driver), mom_patterns, cost_projection, trailing_30d_summary (its top_driver is the report's Top Cost Driver without an invoice), granular_analytics (present only when Observability Analytics ran), or the per-service/month detail files.

Step 5: Follow-Up Questions

Phase 1 (default): answer from the JSON on disk in a few sentences or a small table, name what the data can't settle, then stop and offer 3–4 ways to go deeper. Don't re-run collection or re-query sources.

Question about	Read
A severity	severity_summary, granular_analytics.top_signatures for that severity
A service	service_details/{service}.json, top_signatures and top_log_names for it
An optimization action	its entry in reduction_actions.actions (claims, refused_claims, flag, counted)

Phase 2 (only after the user picks a direction): go as deep as it needs. Run Observability Analytics SQL against analytics_metadata.table_name, the _AllLogs view the collector measured. Step 3 still applies.

Step 6: Prove It

provenance.claims[<id>] records each headline figure's formula, sources (exact query, Google Cloud console link, steps; only the 10 largest streams per action), known differences from the console, and runnable checks (covering every stream). Ids include latest_complete_spend, mtd_run_rate, trailing_30d_volume, estimated_run_rate, top_cost_driver, extraneous_spend, severity_costs, service_mix, action::<action id>. A claim built from others lists them in see_also (extraneous_spend → its counted actions); prove those too, and verify_claim.py re-checks them with it.

When asked to prove a figure:

1. Now, from disk: walk the formula with its inputs; list each source with its Google Cloud console link, its query exactly as recorded, and steps; then the differences.
2. Same turn, in the background: run /tmp/finops_venv/bin/python scripts/verify_claim.py --summary <summary> --claim "<id>"; don't wait.
3. When it finishes: a table (check | report | live | Δ | ✓/△/✗) and a one-line verdict. Explain △ with the recorded differences; give ✗ causes in one line each.

[!CAUTION] Prove It is the only request that may re-query sources, and only via verify_claim.py. Don't re-run collection or alter the recorded queries.

Disclose when relevant: whether the claim was priced (pricing.mode) per_sku (each SKU's price and free tier in pricing.skus) or blended (reason in pricing.notes); that service and severity figures exclude credits; and, if cross_project_billing, that reproducing it needs roles/bigquery.dataViewer on the billing export dataset and roles/bigquery.jobUser.