Google Cloud Asset API
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For Agents
Search, export, and monitor Google Cloud resources, IAM policies, and org policies across an organization. Useful for inventory, compliance, and change-detection workflows on GCP.
Use for: I need to export every Compute Engine instance in my organization to BigQuery, Find all GCP resources tagged environment=production, Check whether any service account has the owner role at the organization level, List all assets that changed in the last 24 hours
Not supported: Does not provision resources, change IAM policies, or stream logs — use for inventory search, IAM analysis, and asset change feeds only.
Google Cloud Asset Inventory exposes a unified history and metadata index for resources, IAM policies, and org policies across a Google Cloud organization, folder, or project. Agents can search assets across asset types, export point-in-time snapshots, analyze IAM grants, and subscribe to feeds that emit changes as assets are created, updated, or deleted. The API supports SQL-like asset queries, move analysis between resource containers, and saved queries that can be re-run by agents on a schedule.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Cloud Asset API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Cloud Asset API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Cloud Asset API.
Export point-in-time inventory snapshots of GCP assets to BigQuery or Cloud Storage
Search resources and IAM policies across an organization, folder, or project
Analyze IAM policy grants to determine who has access to a given resource
Subscribe to asset feeds that publish create, update, and delete events to Pub/Sub
Run SQL-style queries over the asset inventory with the queryAssets endpoint
Save and re-run inventory queries on a schedule for compliance reporting
Analyze the impact of moving a project between billing accounts or folders
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Cloud Asset API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Cloud Inventory Export to BigQuery
Operations teams use Cloud Asset Inventory to take a structured snapshot of every resource in a Google Cloud organization and load it into BigQuery for analysis. The exportAssets endpoint writes asset metadata, resource configurations, IAM policies, and org policies as Avro or JSON, where it can be joined against billing data, security findings, or CMDB records. Initial setup runs in minutes; recurring exports can be triggered on any cadence.
Call POST /v1/{parent}:exportAssets with parent=organizations/123456 and contentType=RESOURCE to write a snapshot to a Cloud Storage bucket
IAM Access Analysis
Security teams use the analyzeIamPolicy operation to answer questions like who can access a given service account or which principals have storage.objects.delete permission. The API walks group memberships and resource-hierarchy inheritance, returning a flattened access map suitable for compliance evidence or least-privilege reviews.
Call analyzeIamPolicy on the organization scope with a query asking which principals have the role roles/owner
Real-Time Change Detection Feed
Platform teams subscribe asset feeds to Pub/Sub topics so that any create, update, or delete event on a configured asset type fires a notification within seconds. This drives drift detection, automated tagging enforcement, and rollback workflows without polling.
Create a feed via POST /v1/{parent}/feeds that watches assetTypes=storage.googleapis.com/Bucket and publishes to a Pub/Sub topic
AI Agent Compliance Reviewer via Jentic
An agent invoked by Jentic uses Cloud Asset queries to answer compliance questions on demand: which buckets are public, which service accounts have unused keys, which projects sit outside an approved folder. The agent runs queryAssets, formats the result as evidence, and either escalates to a human or opens a remediation ticket.
Search Jentic for 'list google cloud assets', execute the resulting Cloud Asset query operation with a SQL filter for public buckets, and report violations
Key Endpoints
20 endpoints — google cloud asset inventory exposes a unified history and metadata index for resources, iam policies, and org policies across a google cloud organization, folder, or project.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
POST
/v1/{+parent}:exportAssets
Export an asset snapshot to BigQuery or Cloud Storage
GET
/v1/{+parent}/assets
List assets under a parent scope
POST
/v1/{+parent}:queryAssets
Run a SQL-style query against the asset inventory
POST
/v1/{+parent}/feeds
Create an asset change feed that publishes to Pub/Sub
GET
/v1/{+parent}/savedQueries
List saved asset queries
GET
/v1/{+parent}:batchGetAssetsHistory
Retrieve historical state of assets over a time window
GET
/v1/{+resource}:analyzeMove
Analyze the impact of moving a resource between parents
POST
/v1/{+parent}:exportAssets
Export an asset snapshot to BigQuery or Cloud Storage
GET
/v1/{+parent}/assets
List assets under a parent scope
POST
/v1/{+parent}:queryAssets
Run a SQL-style query against the asset inventory
POST
/v1/{+parent}/feeds
Create an asset change feed that publishes to Pub/Sub
GET
/v1/{+parent}/savedQueries
List saved asset queries
GET
/v1/{+parent}:batchGetAssetsHistory
Retrieve historical state of assets over a time window
GET
/v1/{+resource}:analyzeMove
Analyze the impact of moving a resource between parents
Why Jentic?
Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.
Credential isolation
Google Cloud OAuth 2.0 credentials and service account keys are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents receive short-lived access tokens scoped to cloud-platform — raw service account JSON never enters the agent context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent (e.g. 'list google cloud assets' or 'analyze gcp iam policy') and Jentic returns the matching Cloud Asset operation with its parameter schema, so the agent can call the right endpoint without reading Discovery docs.
Time to first call
Direct Cloud Asset integration: 1-3 days for OAuth, scope selection, and long-running operation polling. Through Jentic: under an hour — search, load schema, execute.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Cloud Asset API through Jentic.
What authentication does the Cloud Asset API use?
The Cloud Asset API uses OAuth 2.0 with the cloud-platform scope. Tokens are issued for a Google service account or user identity. Through Jentic, the OAuth credential is held in the Jentic vault and the agent receives a scoped access token only — the underlying service account key never enters agent context.
Can I export a full GCP inventory snapshot with the Cloud Asset API?
Yes. POST to /v1/{parent}:exportAssets with parent set to your organization, folder, or project, choose contentType (RESOURCE, IAM_POLICY, ORG_POLICY, or ACCESS_POLICY), and supply a Cloud Storage or BigQuery destination. The export runs as a long-running operation and writes one record per asset.
What are the rate limits for the Cloud Asset API?
Cloud Asset API quotas are published per-method in the Google Cloud console under the Cloud Asset API quota page; typical limits are several hundred queries per minute per project for read operations and lower limits for analyzeIamPolicy. Exports run as long-running operations and are throttled separately.
How do I detect resource changes in real time with this API through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'create google cloud asset feed' and execute the resulting operation against POST /v1/{parent}/feeds with the asset types you want to watch and a Pub/Sub topic name. The feed fires a message on every create, update, or delete and the agent can react without polling.
Does the Cloud Asset API support cross-project IAM analysis?
Yes. analyzeIamPolicy and analyzeIamPolicyLongrunning accept an organization or folder scope, so a single call can return who has a given permission across every project under that node. Use the long-running variant for organization-wide queries that exceed the synchronous timeout.
Is the Cloud Asset API free?
The Cloud Asset API itself has a free tier for metadata queries; exports to BigQuery or Cloud Storage incur the standard storage and query charges. analyzeIamPolicy calls and SearchAllResources beyond the free tier are billed per request as documented on the Google Cloud pricing page.
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