GCP Skills Guide

You have specialized GCP debugging skills. Use these instead of raw gcloud commands for consistent, well-documented workflows.

Decision Tree

Skills vs Agents

Simple, single gcloud command query? → Use gcp-logs skill

• Better than: Running raw gcloud logging read commands
• Example: "Find ERROR logs for api-gateway service"
• Use when: Quick log fetch, single service, no correlation needed

Complex investigation requiring multiple steps? → Use Task tool with GCP agents (conserves context)

• gcp-locator - Fetch logs from multiple services, save to /tmp
• gcp-analyzer - Filter logs, diagnose service issues, check IAM
• gcp-pattern-finder - Correlate logs across services, build timelines
• Use when: Multi-service investigation, correlation, pattern detection

When to Use Which Agent

Just need to fetch logs broadly? → Use gcp-locator agent only

• Fetches logs from multiple services/time ranges
• Saves to /tmp for later analysis
• Example: "Get all ERROR logs from service-b, service-a, backend for last hour"

Investigating single service issue? → Use gcp-locator + gcp-analyzer agents

• Locator: Fetch relevant logs
• Analyzer: Filter, diagnose root cause, check IAM/roles
• Example: "Debug service-b permission errors"

Need to correlate across services or find patterns? → Use all three: gcp-locator + gcp-analyzer + gcp-pattern-finder

• Locator: Fetch from all relevant services
• Analyzer: Filter each service's logs
• Pattern-finder: Correlate by trace_id, build timelines, find patterns
• Example: "Trace request flow across service-a → service-b → backend"

Need to understand GCP IAP authentication? → Check documentation or use WebFetch

• GCP IAP tokens: gcloud auth print-identity-token
• Use for Grafana, ArgoCD, Temporal access

Available GCP Tools

When to Use Raw gcloud

Only use gcloud directly when:

• Running one-off commands not covered by skills
• User explicitly requests a specific gcloud command
• Debugging the skill itself

For systematic GCP work, use the specialized skills above.

Common GCP Tools

• gcloud - Primary CLI tool
• gcloud logging read - Cloud Logging queries (use gcp-logs skill)
• gcloud auth print-identity-token - Get IAP tokens for service access

Authentication

Check authentication before any GCP operation:

gcloud auth list
gcloud config get-value project