break-glass

name	break-glass
description	Emergency IAM elevation for oncall/debugging. Discovers GCP projects and guides through granting/revoking permissions.

Break Glass - Emergency IAM Elevation

Help the user temporarily elevate their IAM permissions for oncall/emergency access to GCP projects.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS

Workflow

1. Get current user

gcloud config get-value account

2. Discover and match project

If user provided a project hint (like "staging", "dev", "prod"), search for matching projects:

gcloud projects list --format="value(projectId)" --filter="projectId~HINT OR name~HINT"

Or list all accessible projects to help them choose:

gcloud projects list --format="table(projectId,name)" --limit=20

Always confirm the exact project ID with the user before proceeding.

3. Confirm prerequisites

Ask user to confirm:

• Have you notified the appropriate slack channel?
• Have you raised a ticket per your org's process?

4. Determine role

Parse from arguments or ask. Map shortcuts:

• storage -> roles/storage.admin
• run -> roles/run.admin
• logs -> roles/logging.viewer
• pubsub -> roles/pubsub.admin
• bigquery -> roles/bigquery.admin
• owner or nothing specified -> roles/owner

5. Grant access

gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
  --member='user:USER_EMAIL' \
  --role='ROLE'

If prompted about conditions when ADDING:

• Choose [2] None (the options are: [1] EXPRESSION=..., [2] None, [3] Specify new)

6. Provide revoke command

Immediately after granting, give the exact revoke command:

gcloud projects remove-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
  --member='user:USER_EMAIL' \
  --role='ROLE'

If prompted about conditions when REMOVING:

• Choose [1] None (the options are: [1] None, [2] all conditions)
• You added without a condition, so remove without a condition

7. Remind about cleanup

Tell user to:

• Revoke permissions when done
• Close their ticket

Example Usage

• /break-glass staging - find projects matching "staging", grant owner
• /break-glass dev storage - find projects matching "dev", grant storage.admin
• /break-glass my-exact-project-id - use exact project ID
• /break-glass - list projects and ask what they need