triage-gcp-quota-exceeded

id	triage-quota-exceeded
name	Triage GCP Quota Exceeded
description	Diagnose GCP quota errors and identify the quota, scope, and fastest safe mitigation.
tags	["gcp","quota","triage","oncall"]
maturity	draft
inputs	{"service":"string","error_message":"string","region":"string?"}
outputs	["quota_name","quota_scope","mitigation_options"]
tools_allowed	["gcp.logging_read","gcp.quotas_read"]
safety	{"default_mode":"read_only","forbidden":["gcp.quotas_write"],"requires_confirmation_for":["gcp.quotas_write"]}

When to use

Use when services fail with quota exceeded, RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED, or similar quota limit errors.

Preconditions

• You can access the project and identify the failing service and region.

Procedure

1. Extract the quota name/metric from the error message.
2. Determine the scope: project, region, zone, or per-user.
3. Confirm whether this is a spike (traffic/deploy) or a steady-state growth.
4. Identify the top consumers (which resources or calls drive the quota).
5. Choose mitigation: reduce usage, shift traffic, or request quota increase.

Decision points

• Spike caused by deploy/loop: rollback or hotfix to reduce calls.
• Legit growth: request quota increase and add alerting before hitting limits.
• Regional quota: spread across regions or rebalance.

Verification

• Error rate drops and quota errors stop.
• Resource creation/API calls succeed.

Rollback / undo

• Revert changes that increased consumption (deploy/config).
• If throttling is introduced, remove it after quota is safe.

Escalation

• Escalate to service owners if usage is driven by application behavior.
• Escalate to cloud owners for quota increase approvals.

Examples

Look for the quota metric name in the error, then map it to the service and region.