Create a Cloud Assist investigation

This page shows you how to create and review Gemini Cloud Assist investigations using the Google Cloud console.

Before you begin

  1. Verify your project has the following APIs enabled:

    • cloudaicompanion.googleapis.com
    • cloudasset.googleapis.com
    • cloudresourcemanager.googleapis.com
    • geminicloudassist.googleapis.com
    • (Recommended) logging.googleapis.com
    • (Recommended) monitoring.googelapis.com

    See Enabling and disabling services for instructions on how to enable APIs.

  2. In order to get the required permissions for creating an investigation, ask your administrator to grant you the Investigation Creator (roles/geminicloudassist.investigationCreator) IAM role on the project.

    This predefined role contains the permission required to create an investigation within your project. When you create an investigation, you're granted the Investigation Owner (roles/geminicloudassist.investigationOwner) IAM role on that investigation, which lets you review the results of the investigation.

  3. Have access to the product being investigated.

    When you perform an investigation, Gemini Cloud Assist uses your credentials to access APIs and information. This means that the investigation's access is limited to the access that you have.

  4. If you plan to perform an investigation on an application, the application must be contained within App Hub.

Create an investigation

  1. To create a new investigation, click the Investigate button associated with your entry point. A typical entry point for creating an investigation is the Cloud Assist Investigations page.

    Go to Cloud Assist Investigations

  2. (Optional) Enter a Name for your investigation.

    The name you choose identifies this investigation in your investigation history. If you skip this step, a name for the investigation is generated automatically.

  3. Select the Start time when the issue that you're investigating began.

  4. (Optional) Select the End time when the issue that you're investigating ended.

  5. Review the Project or Application that the investigation will be scoped to.

    • If the investigation is created in a project, then the project is selected and not editable.

    • If the investigation is created in an app-enabled folder then an App Hub application can be selected.

  6. Describe the issue that you're experiencing.

    You can copy and paste the exact error message you received, you can use natural language to explain the issue that you're experiencing, or you can include both.

  7. In the Relevant project resources section, select the resources that are affected by the issue you're experiencing. If you include information in the Error message field, adding relevant resources is optional, but still recommended.

    You can add resources either by using the resource picker or by inputting them manually using the following structure:

    //API_NAME/projects/PROJECT/locations/LOCATION/resource/RESOURCE

    Note that the investigation fails if you include any of the following:

    • Resources that are in a project or application that is outside the scope of the investigation.
    • Resources that are not supported.
    • Resources that are not recognized.

  8. Click Create to begin the investigation.

It can take up to several minutes for the investigation to complete. You can check the status of the investigation by clicking the Notifications button ().

Review an Investigation

Once the investigation completes, you can view the investigation details from the entry point where you initiated the investigation or from your project's investigation history.

An investigation contains the following sections:

  1. The Issue

    This section contains the input information that was used to generate the results of the investigation, such as the issue description, timestamps, and lists of relevant resources. There are three types of resource lists that might be associated with the investigation:

    • User-provided resources: Resources provided by the user or fetched from the initial error.
    • Discovered resources: Additional resources considered by Gemini while performing the investigation.
    • Relevant resources: The resources that Gemini considers relevant to the root cause hypothesis, which always includes user-provided resources.

  2. The Observations

    This section contains observations generated by the investigation. Observations are based on reviews of procedural runbooks, logs, outage messages, and alerts. From these observations, Gemini generates hypotheses as to the root cause of the issue you're investigating.

  3. The Hypotheses

    This section contains one or more hypotheses based on the data the investigation collected and the observations it made. A hypothesis contains an Overview of what the issue could be and Recommended fixes which are actions that either help you correct the issue or that provide you additional troubleshooting steps to confirm or refute the hypothesis.

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