Onboarding a new log source shouldn't take days of manual development or require deep regex expertise. In this highly interactive session, Security Advisor Bernie Weidel joined us to showcase how to leverage Gemini to rapidly prototype, build, and troubleshoot custom SecOps parsers in a fraction of the time.
What You Can Expect
In this webinar, you can expect to learn how to:
-
What is "Vibe Coding"? Coined by Andre Karpathy, "vibe coding" is the art of using generative AI to express your intent in plain English while the AI handles the syntax. In the context of Google SecOps, it means you don't need to be a Logstash or regex expert to build custom parsers.
-
Weeks to Minutes: Traditionally, requesting, building, and deploying a custom parser could take weeks or even months. With Gemini and "vibe coding," you can build, troubleshoot, and validate multiple custom parsers in less than an hour.
-
The Iterative Loop: We walked through the exact blueprint for prompting Gemini, testing the output in SecOps, feeding back errors to the AI, and doing a final validation.
-
The Agentic Future: Bernie gave us a sneak peek into the future—using agentic workflows (like MCP servers and Google's agentic tools) to entirely automate the copy-paste validation loop, bringing parser generation down to under five minutes.
Webinar Timeline & Key Discussion Points
To help you jump straight to the parts of the session most relevant to you, use the timestamps below:
-
[7:14] - Meet Bernie Weidel & The Origin of "Vibe Coding"
-
Introduction to Bernie and how "vibe coding" (coined in early 2025) is unlocking parser accessibility for security teams.
-
-
[14:21] - The Crucial Step: Human-in-the-Loop Validation
-
Why fast development still requires expert validation. The importance of mapping to the key Unified Data Model (UDM) fields to ensure your custom and curated detections actually fire.
-
-
[16:53] - The Blueprint: Mapping Key UDM Fields
-
A look at the parser reference documents and the ~200 critical fields that threat intelligence-driven rules rely on.
-
-
[19:02] - Parser Extensions vs. Building From Scratch
-
Knowing when to use no-code parser extensions for minor tweaks versus building a brand-new JSON/Syslog parser from scratch.
-
-
[21:21] - Prompting Best Practices for Gemini
-
How to treat Gemini like a co-worker. Sharing advanced prompts that feed Gemini a working parser template, specific rules (e.g., regex double-backslash formatting), and targeted documentation to cut down debugging iterations by 50%.
-
-
[39:34] - Live Demonstration: Building a Parser Live
-
Bernie takes a completely raw JSON log sample and uses Gemini 3.1 Pro to write a Logstash parser live.
-
Watch the iterative troubleshooting process: pasting errors from SecOps back into Gemini to fix syntax issues.
-
-
[53:18] - Live Parser Validation Success!
-
The moment of truth: After a few iterations, the custom parser successfully validates live in Google SecOps and outputs perfectly formatted UDM fields.
-
-
[56:06] - The Agentic Frontier (Anti-Gravity & MCP)
-
Exploring the next phase of security automation: Using custom AI agents and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to automate the entire test-and-debug loop directly inside your CLI.
-
Key Resources Mentioned in This Session
To start vibe coding your own parsers, add these critical links to your prompt context:
- Parser Syntax Reference: https://docs.cloud.google.com/chronicle/docs/reference/parser-syntax Most Critical: SecOps uses a highly customized Logstash/Ruby parser pipeline. If Gemini is not constrained by these exact syntax structures, it will output generic Logstash syntax that fails validation. Providing this ensures compiling filters like grok, json, or kv.
- Sample Parser Templates: https://github.com/chronicle/content-hub/tree/main/content/parsers/third_party/community Visual Frameworks: LLMs learn best from matching examples. Providing 1 or 2 working community parser configurations acts as a functional map. It teaches Gemini how to correctly track intermediate fields, handle error conditions, and structuralize the final state output blocks.
- Map to Key UDM Fields: https://docs.cloud.google.com/chronicle/docs/reference/important-udm-fields. Semantic Guide: Acts as the "North Star" for variable destination paths. This directs the model's mapping targets, ensuring critical, high-value fields (like metadata.event_type or principal.hostname) are populated correctly instead of mapping keys into obscure objects
