Skip to content
Get packs

BigQuery Troubleshooting

Diagnose slow, failing, or unexpectedly expensive BigQuery jobs using step-by-step root-cause workflows.

Source Download skill
Repository
google/skills
Stars
21,782
Licence
Apache-2.0
Files
8 files

What it does

Once installed, the agent follows structured procedures for investigating BigQuery problems: slow or failing jobs, stage bottlenecks in query execution graphs, cluster capacity contention, and cost spikes from on-demand queries, slot autoscaling, or storage growth. It starts with a bounded high-level scan, summarizes findings, and offers focused drill-down options instead of dumping lots of queries at once. It is a diagnostic playbook, not a SQL writing tool.

Great for

  • Data engineers whose nightly BigQuery jobs suddenly slowed down and need a root-cause check
  • Teams whose Google Cloud bill spiked and need to find whether queries, slots, or storage caused it
  • Platform admins investigating reservation or slot saturation

Skip it if

  • Writing or optimizing SQL or planning capacity in advance: the skill says those belong to the bigquery-optimization companion skill
  • Users who only want a ready-made monitoring query: the skill says to use bigquery-observability instead
  • Anyone without a Google Cloud project and billing access, since the diagnostics need live project telemetry and IAM roles that can expose cost and job data

Try asking

  • “Why did my BigQuery bill spike last week?”
  • “My job job_id 12345 in region US is running much slower than yesterday, help me find the bottleneck.”
  • “Our reservation slots look saturated at peak hours; what is causing the contention?”
  • “Storage costs in project X grew sharply this month, which tables are responsible?”
Step-by-step guide: how to use BigQuery TroubleshootingInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs

Install in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the skill

    The ZIP contains the 8 original files, the Apache-2.0 licence and an attribution note.

    bigquery-troubleshooting.zip
  2. 2

    Add it to your agent

    Claude Code (all projects)

    mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip bigquery-troubleshooting.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/

    Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)

    mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip bigquery-troubleshooting.zip -d .claude/skills/

    Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.

  3. 3

    Ask for the task

    No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.

Get better results

  • Give the agent a project ID, region, and job ID or reservation ID up front so the scan stays narrow and cheap.
  • Use a dedicated service account with read-only roles such as jobUser and viewer rather than broad admin rights.
  • Review each gcloud or bq command before approval, since the agent may run diagnostic queries that consume a small amount of billed data.

What's inside

  • references/attribution.md
  • references/cost_compute_capacity.md
  • references/cost_compute_ondemand.md
  • references/cost_storage.md
  • references/performance_config_changed.md
  • references/performance_resource_contention.md
  • references/query_plan_execution_graph.md
  • SKILL.md

Redistributed unmodified from google/skills under the Apache-2.0 licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.