Research Cloud Fleet Visibility,
Completely Read-Only
A fast desktop viewer for Google Cloud research fleets powered by the Skywalker MCP server. Observe spend, budgets, compute, access, exposure, and activity without granting write privileges.
Designed for Research Computing
Built for principal investigators, lab managers, and research computing directors who need actionable cloud telemetry.
Fleet Overview
Instant view of month-to-date gross & net spend across dozens of research projects, top-spending movers, and automated Skywalker insights.
Budget Governance
Real-time budget consumption tracking with exhaustion projections and automated warnings for projects spending without a budget.
12 Project Deep Dives
Comprehensive audits per project: compute GPUs/instances, unattached disk waste, IAM access risks, service account keys, and SCC findings.
21 MCP Tools Explorer
Direct inspection of all 21 Skywalker Model Context Protocol tools with dynamic schemas and readable result inspection.
Visual Tour
Curated captures from the self-contained demo environment.
Budgets & Projections
Track budget thresholds, daily burn rates, and projected month-end closes with color-coded heat bars.
Project Spend & Compute
Daily 30-day burn chart, service allocations (Compute, Vertex AI, Storage), running VMs, and Recommender savings.
Access & Security Audits
Flagged member permissions, public Cloud Run roles, non-domain accounts, and open firewall rules.
Skywalker MCP Explorer
Interactive playground to query any of the 21 MCP inspection endpoints directly.
Security & Architecture
Designed from the ground up for strict read-only compliance and secure credential isolation.
OAuth 2.1 with PKCE (S256)
Standards-compliant authentication against Skywalker with dynamic client registration and loopback redirect.
Native Keychain Isolation
Tokens live strictly in macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager. Never accessible to webview DOM.
Two-Click Intent Gate
Sign-in requires two deliberate physical clicks. Prevents accidental authorization or focus clickjacking.
100% Read-Only Guarantee
Telescope only issues query tool calls. It cannot create, alter, or delete any cloud resources.
In-Memory Caching & Rate Limits
Strictly bounded concurrency (max 3 in-flight) and respectful HTTP 429 backoff with Retry-After honoring.
Clean Revocation on Sign-Out
Revokes the refresh token on the Skywalker server (RFC 7009) and clears local secure storage.
Installation & Quickstart
Telescope is packaged as a universal macOS DMG (Apple Silicon & Intel).
1. Install DMG
Download Telescope-0.1.0-mac-universal.dmg from GitHub Releases and drag to Applications.
2. macOS Quarantine Override (if required)
If macOS warns about an unnotarized developer build, right-click and choose Open, or run:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Telescope.app
3. Building from Source
Requires Node.js 22+ and Rust stable:
git clone https://github.com/charles-forsyth/telescope.git && cd telescope
npm ci && npm test
cd src-tauri && cargo test && cd ..
npm run tauri build
Citation
If you use Telescope or Skywalker in academic research or cloud governance, please cite:
@software{forsyth2026telescope,
author = {Forsyth, Charles E. III},
title = {Telescope: a read-only desktop viewer for a research cloud fleet},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
version = {0.1.0},
url = {https://github.com/charles-forsyth/telescope}
}