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Google Cloud has no API that answers "what did this month cost". Its bill is the export a billing account writes to a BigQuery dataset, so that is what CloudBridge reads: one query per month, giving cost per day by service, SKU, project and region. Credits — free tier, committed use, promotions — come back as their own rows, so usage stays what it cost before them.

Turn on the export

The export holds data from the day it is turned on, so do this first, even before installing CloudBridge.

1. In the Google Cloud console, open Billing → Billing export → BigQuery export.
2. Under Standard usage cost, click Edit settings, pick a project and create a dataset for it (for example billing), and save.
3. Once the first rows arrive — within a day — the dataset holds a table named gcp_billing_export_v1_ followed by the billing account ID. In BigQuery, open it and use Copy ID: that is the Billing export table CloudBridge asks for, such as my-project.billing.gcp_billing_export_v1_01AB23_45CD67_89EF01.

Give CloudBridge a key

1. In the export dataset's project, open IAM & Admin → Service accounts and create one, such as cloudbridge.
2. Grant it BigQuery Job User on the project, so it can run a query, and BigQuery Data Viewer on the export dataset, so the query can read the table.
3. Open the service account, then Keys → Add key → Create new key → JSON. Keep the downloaded file somewhere private.
4. In CloudBridge, add an account for Google Cloud with the key file's path and the billing export table.

CloudBridge keeps the path, not the key: the file is read at each fetch, so rotating the key is a matter of replacing the file. The credentials file gcloud auth application-default login writes works in its place, and so does GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS with Use this machine's credentials.

What the bill shows

Column	From
Service	service.description — Compute Engine, Cloud Storage
Description	The SKU — N2 Instance Core running in Americas
Project	project.id and project.name
Region	location.region
Day	The usage day
Category	Usage, Tax or Adjustment, from cost_type; credits as Credit

A month is the invoice month, as on the Google Cloud invoice. Usage billed late lands in the month it was invoiced in, even when it ran in the month before.

The query reads the whole export table. BigQuery's on-demand pricing applies past the monthly free tier; a billing export is usually far smaller than that, but it grows for as long as the export runs. Insights does not scan Google Cloud resources.

See Provider permissions for exactly which endpoints CloudBridge calls.