Quickstart: Discover AWS Resources

This tutorial walks you through scanning your live AWS account for cost optimization opportunities using CloudBurn's discovery mode.

Prerequisites

• CloudBurn CLI installed (see Installation)
• AWS credentials configured (via ~/.aws/credentials, environment variables, or an IAM role)
• Permissions to use AWS Resource Explorer in your account

How discovery works

Step 1: Set up Resource Explorer

CloudBurn uses AWS Resource Explorer to list resources across your account. Run the init command to create the required indexes:

cloudburn discover init

This creates local indexes across all enabled regions and promotes your current region to the aggregator, enabling multi-region scans. See the Resource Explorer Setup guide for details.

Step 2: Check status

Verify that Resource Explorer is ready:

cloudburn discover status

Expected output when ready:

Resource Explorer status: ACTIVE
Indexed regions: us-east-1
Aggregator: us-east-1

Indexing can take a few minutes after init. Re-run status until you see ACTIVE.

Step 3: Run discovery

Once the index is active, run the discovery scan:

cloudburn discover

CloudBurn queries Resource Explorer, enriches the resource data via hydrators, then evaluates all applicable rules. Findings are printed as a table.

Step 4: Scan all regions

If you set up an aggregator index during init, you can scan resources across all indexed regions:

cloudburn discover --region all

To scan a specific region:

cloudburn discover --region us-west-2

Step 5: Filter by service

To limit the scan to specific AWS services:

cloudburn discover --service ec2,ebs

Expected output:

┌──────────┬──────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Provider │ RuleId           │ Service │ ResourceId                 │ Message                                                │
├──────────┼──────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ aws      │ CLDBRN-AWS-EBS-1 │ ebs     │ vol-0abc123def456789a      │ EBS volume is not using gp3; migrate to save up to 20% │
└──────────┴──────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

What's next