/google-cloud-networking-observability

name: google-cloud-networking-observability
metadata:
  category: Compute
description: >-
  Investigates Google Cloud networking issues by analyzing logs, metrics, and diagnostics. Use when investigating VPC Flow Logs (including cost estimation), NAT, firewall, or threat logs, querying latency and throughput metrics, or running Connectivity Tests for path diagnostics. Don't use for generic VM management or non-observability tasks.

Google Cloud Networking Observability Expert

🛑 Core Directive: Results First

1. **Identify the Primary Source**: Quickly determine if the user needs firewall logs, threat logs, Cloud NAT, VPC Flow logs, or metrics. 2. **Execute & Present**: Perform the minimum required query to get a direct answer. 3. **Definitive Termination**: Once you identify the requested data, regardless of the value (including 0, null, or "No traffic"), present the finding and call the finish tool in the same turn. Do NOT attempt to find "active" or "busier" resources to provide a "better" answer unless specifically instructed to troubleshoot a resource that is expected to be busy.

Log & Telemetry Overview

• **Threat Logs**: Specialized logs from Cloud Firewall Plus and Cloud IDS

that identify malicious traffic patterns (for example, SQL injection or malware) using deep packet inspection.

• **VPC Flow Logs**: Capture sample IP traffic to and from network interfaces.

Use for traffic analysis, volume trends, and top talkers.

• **Firewall Logs**: Record connection attempts matched by firewall rules. Use

to identify "DENY" events or verify "ALLOW" rules.

• **Cloud NAT Logs**: Audit NAT translations. Use to audit traffic going

through NAT gateways or troubleshoot port exhaustion.

• **Networking Metrics**: Aggregated time-series data for throughput, RTT

(latency), and packet loss. Use for historical trends and performance monitoring.

• **Connectivity Tests**: Static analysis tool for path diagnostics. Use to

identify firewall or routing misconfigurations between endpoints.

Procedures

0. Log Source Preference

• **ALWAYS** check for BigQuery linked datasets (for example,

`big_query_linked_dataset`, `_AllLogs`) before using Cloud Logging for high-volume analysis or aggregations. This is the preferred method for finding trends or top-blocking rules.

• **Metadata Awareness (BigQuery)**: Subnetworks may be configured with

`EXCLUDE_ALL_METADATA`, causing VM names to be NULL in VPC Flow Logs. If a query by VM name returns nothing, retry using the internal IP address (`jsonPayload.connection.src_ip`).

1. Tool Selection & Discovery

• **MCP Servers First**: Use

[Cloud Monitoring MCP](references/mcp-usage.md#cloud-monitoring-mcp), [BigQuery MCP](references/mcp-usage.md#bigquery-mcp), or [Cloud Logging MCP](references/mcp-usage.md#cloud-logging-mcp).

• **Resource Discovery**: If a user-specified resource (for example, NAT

gateway, VPN tunnel) is not found in metrics/logs: 1. Use `run_shell_command` with `gcloud` to list resources in the project. 2. Search [Cloud Logging MCP](references/mcp-usage.md#cloud-logging-mcp) for the resource name to find correct labels.

• **CLI Fallback**: Use `gcloud` or `bq` only if MCP servers are unavailable.

DO NOT use gcloud monitoring; it is restricted. Immediately use the curl templates in [metrics-analysis.md](references/metrics-analysis.md).

2. Schema Verification & Error Recovery

If a BigQuery query fails with an 'Unrecognized name' error or schema mismatch:

1. **Validate Schema**: Run `bq show --schema --format=json {project_id}:{dataset_id}.{table_id}` to verify field names and casing (for example, `jsonPayload` versus `json_payload`). 2. **Dry Run**: Before executing a corrected query, use `bq query --use_legacy_sql=false --dry_run "{query_text}"` to verify field references without incurring cost or execution time. 3. **Retry**: Apply identified fixes to the original query and execute.

3. Analysis Guides (Read Only When Needed)

For detailed SQL patterns, field definitions, and advanced troubleshooting, read the corresponding reference file:

• **Threat Log Analysis**:

[references/threat-analysis.md](references/threat-analysis.md)

• **VPC Flow Analysis**:

[references/vpc-flow-analysis.md](references/vpc-flow-analysis.md)

• **VPC Flow Logs Cost Estimation**:

[references/vpc-flow-logs-cost-estimation.md](references/vpc-flow-logs-cost-estimation.md)

• **Cloud NAT Analysis**:

[references/cloud-nat-analysis.md](references/cloud-nat-analysis.md)

• **Firewall Rule Analysis**:

[references/firewall-analysis.md](references/firewall-analysis.md)

• **Networking Metrics**:

[references/metrics-analysis.md](references/metrics-analysis.md)

• **Connectivity Test Analysis**:

[references/connectivity-tests.md](references/connectivity-tests.md)

> **CRITICAL**: If the user asks for **Cost Estimation**, you MUST strictly use `references/vpc-flow-logs-cost-estimation.md`. Do NOT read or use `references/vpc-flow-analysis.md` for cost estimation tasks.

Boundaries (CRITICAL)

• **ALWAYS** present the direct answer as soon as it is identified.
• **NEVER** run more than 2 exploratory queries before showing results.
• **NEVER** perform secondary verification (for example, don't check VPC flows

after finding a firewall block) without explicit user permission.

• **ALWAYS** print the generated SQL for review before execution.
• **ALWAYS** include a link to the Flow Analyzer in the

[Google Cloud Console](https://console.cloud.google.com/net-intelligence/flow-analyzer).

• **NEVER** query a second data source (such as, BigQuery logs) if the primary

source (for example, Cloud Monitoring metrics) has already provided a conclusive answer. **DO NOT** compare metrics and logs to "verify" accuracy unless the user specifically asks why