cloud-logging

Read and analyze log entries from Cloud Logging using the gcloud CLI. $ARGUMENTS is a natural-language description of the log query (e.g., Cloud Run error logs from the last hour in production). If $ARGUMENTS is empty, ask the user for the query criteria.

Prerequisites

• gcloud CLI is installed and authenticated
• The user has the Logs Viewer role (or equivalent) on the target Google Cloud project

Steps

1. Run gcloud config get-value project to confirm the current project ID. If the project is not set or may not match the user's intent, ask the user to confirm
2. Analyze $ARGUMENTS to identify the following query parameters:
   • Monitored resource type (resource.type): e.g., cloud_run_revision, gce_instance, k8s_container, cloud_function
   • Log severity (severity): DEFAULT, DEBUG, INFO, NOTICE, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL, ALERT, EMERGENCY
   • Time range (timestamp): Convert relative expressions (e.g., "last hour") to RFC 3339 timestamps based on the current time
   • Additional conditions: log name, labels, text search, JSON payload fields, etc.
3. Build a Logging query from the identified parameters (refer to query-syntax.md for the query language specification)
4. Present the constructed query to the user and ask for confirmation before executing
5. Execute the query with gcloud logging read
   • Default flags: --limit=50 --format=json
   • Add --freshness or --order=asc/desc as needed
6. Analyze the results and report a summary to the user, including:
   • Total number of log entries returned
   • Trends and patterns in errors or warnings
   • Notable log entries highlighted
7. Handle follow-up requests from the user (e.g., narrowing filters, adjusting time range, inspecting specific log entries)

Query construction guidelines

• Prefer indexed fields (resource.type, logName, severity, timestamp, labels.*) for faster queries
• Avoid global restrictions ("keyword"); instead, specify the field (e.g., textPayload:, jsonPayload.message:)
• Use the : (has) operator for substring matching and =~ for regular expressions (RE2 syntax)
• Combine conditions with AND; use OR only when necessary, as it cannot leverage indexes
• Wrap the entire query filter in single quotes when passing it to the gcloud CLI

Important

• Only use gcloud logging read (read-only). Never execute write or mutating commands such as write, delete, or sinks create
• When querying large volumes of log entries, use --limit to cap results and refine filters iteratively
• If log entries contain sensitive information (PII, auth tokens, etc.), alert the user before displaying them
• When no time range is specified, default to the last 1 hour