Question 1

How does FireShield know my bill is spiking?

Accepted Answer

Google reports each project's spend to FireShield through its budget notifications. The moment a report arrives, FireShield checks it against your thresholds and runs their actions; nobody has to read an email first. How often and how soon Google reports is up to Google.

Question 2

What does it actually do when a threshold is crossed?

Accepted Answer

Whatever you set for that threshold. Every budget starts with a Hard Kill at 100% (disconnecting the project's GCP billing account so spend stops), which you can move or remove. On any threshold you can add alerts (email, Slack, Telegram) and, if you want it, a Soft Kill: a signed webhook to your own infrastructure asking it to degrade service.

Question 3

Do I need to change my application code?

Accepted Answer

No. You link your project by signing in with Google, which grants FireShield an IAM role on its billing account. Nothing to install. Your code only changes if you choose to use Soft Kills: then you add one endpoint to receive the webhook. FireShield never touches your running services directly.

Question 4

Can FireShield read my source code or infrastructure secrets?

Accepted Answer

No. Onboarding is zero-secrets: it uses IAM role grants, not uploaded credentials.

Question 5

What's the difference between Starter, Pro and Enterprise?

Accepted Answer

All three protect your projects the same way: unlimited thresholds, email alerts, Soft Kill and Hard Kill. Starter covers one project. Pro covers up to 5 projects and adds Slack and Telegram alerts, per-project spend charts, a spend breakdown by service, and usage spike detection checked every 10 minutes. Enterprise has everything in Pro, with no limit on projects and spike checks every 5 minutes.

Question 6

Does FireShield work with Firebase projects?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Firebase runs on Google Cloud, so any Firebase project on the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan is a GCP project FireShield can protect. If you've ever hit a surprise Firebase usage limit or a Blaze plan bill that got out of hand, that's exactly the scenario FireShield exists to stop.

Question 7

What is usage spike detection?

Accepted Answer

Google reports spend with a delay of 15 minutes to several hours, so a runaway can grow before any budget alert fires. On Pro and Enterprise, FireShield also reads the usage of each service (Firestore, Cloud Functions, Storage, Realtime Database, Hosting, Gemini) and compares the last hour with the same hour over the last 7 days. When a service jumps past the multiplier you set, say 10 times its normal level, it runs the actions you chose: an alert, a Soft Kill or a Hard Kill. It measures usage, not cost, and you turn it on per project, which grants FireShield read-only access to that project's usage metrics.

Docs

How budgets and thresholds work

What is a Hard Kill

Soft Kill webhooks · integration guide