The Google Cloud action pack contains the following action which enables users to query live data in Google BigQuery via SQL and get the results in a tabular format:
  • Search BigQuery with SQL

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Key Features

  • Real-time warehouse access – no extra indexing required.
  • User-level OAuth ensures results match the caller’s BigQuery permissions.
  • Read-only guarantees: write/DDL statements are blocked by the bigquery.readonly scope.
  • Glean Agents can combine the results from this action with unstructured docs to generate unified answers for users.

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Configuration

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Prerequisites

In order to use the Search BigQuery with SQL action, the BigQuery API must be enabled in your Billing GCP Project from here. Users who are using the action must have the BigQuery User role.

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Setup Google Cloud action pack

This action pack needs the GCP Project ID that you want to bill your queries on. BigQuery determines the location to run the job based on the datasets referenced in the request.
  1. Open Glean Admin Console → Platform → Actions.
  2. Click Add and pick Google Cloud Actions.
  3. Enter the GCP Project ID in the Configuration section
  4. In Publish Settings choose the actions that you wanted enable in Agents.
  5. Click on Save.

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Usage Instructions

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Set Up in Agent Builder

  1. Add a step and navigate to Select Step > All actions > By data source > Google Cloud.
  2. Setup the action:
    • Select Search BigQuery with SQL
    • Enter the SQL that you wish to execute. Example: select * from acmecorp.customers.dim_all_customers
  3. Add a Respond step. Example: Show only the results from the previous step. If >10 rows, present as a table and mention the column names from row 0. Always add citations.

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Grant OAuth access

Because Glean ships with a central, scope-restricted Google OAuth client, customers do not have to create their own. Users simply:
  1. Run an agent that calls a Google Cloud action.
  2. Follow the Google consent screen and grant:

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Best Practices and Troubleshooting

  • Always supply a valid Project ID; otherwise calls will fail with a 404 error.
  • If your queries time out, you can reach out to your Glean account team to raise it. We recommend keeping queries under 120 secs to avoid BigQuery cost spikes.

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Known Limitations

  • Only SELECT statements are supported. Write statements (INSERT/UPDATE/DDL) will return “read-only scope” errors.
  • SQL results longer than 10 rows are truncated in the current UI. We advise adding a LIMIT or filter.
  • Multi-turn conversations are not preserved; each action run is stateless.
  • No automatic retries on BigQuery quota or transient errors – rerun the agent if that occurs.