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  • Welcome to Firefly Documentation
  • Introduction
    • What is Firefly?
    • Who is Firefly for?
    • Why use Firefly?
    • Terminology (Glossary)
  • Key Features
    • Infrastructure-as-Code Automation
    • Cloud Asset Inventory
    • Drift Detection & Remediation
    • Policy-as-Code for Compliance & Governance
    • Cost Visibility & Optimization
    • AI Assistant
    • ChatOps Integration
  • Getting Started
    • Account Setup & Onboarding
    • Connecting Cloud Accounts
    • UI Walkthrough & Navigation
    • First Steps in Firefly
  • Detailed Guides
    • Dashboard Overview
    • Cloud Asset Inventory
      • Remediating Drifts
      • Deleting Assets
      • Creating IaC-Ignore Rules
      • Creating Exclude-Drift Rules
    • Policy & Governance
      • Creating Policy-as-Code Governance Rules
      • Remediating Policy Violations
    • Workflows & Guardrails
      • Creating Workflows
      • Creating Guardrail Rules
    • Codification
    • Self-Service
    • IaC Explorer
    • Event Center
    • Backup and Disaster Recovery
    • Notifications
    • User Management
    • SSO Configuration
  • Integrations
    • Integrations Overview
    • Integrating Data Sources
      • AWS
      • Azure
      • Google Cloud
      • Kubernetes
      • Akamai
      • Datadog
      • New Relic
      • Okta
      • GitHub
      • Cloudflare
      • NS1
      • PagerDuty
      • MongoDB Atlas
      • HashiCorp Vault
    • Integrating IaC Remote State
      • Terraform Cloud
      • Google Cloud Storage
      • env0
      • HashiCorp Consul
      • Firefly States Redactor
    • Integrating Version Control
      • GitHub
      • GitLab
      • Azure DevOps
      • CodeCommit
      • Bitbucket
    • Integrating Notifications
      • Slack
      • Microsoft Teams
      • PagerDuty
      • Opsgenie
      • Torq
      • Webex
      • Google Chat
      • Webhook
    • Integrating Project Management
      • Jira
      • ServiceNow
    • Integrating Workflows with CI/CD
    • Integrating Backstage
    • Integrating MCP
  • Use Cases & Best Practices
    • Cloud Governance & Visibility
    • Cost Optimization Strategies
    • Compliance and Security Best Practices
    • Infrastructure Automation & Self-Service
    • Best Practices and Implementation Tips
  • Analytics & Reporting
    • Analytics Dashboard Overview
    • Using Analytics for Improvement
    • Exporting and Sharing Reports
    • Analytics Security and Privacy
  • Code Snippets & Examples
    • Terraform Snippet for an AWS EC2 Instance (Codified via Firefly)
    • Example Rego Policy (OPA) for a Custom Rule
    • GitHub Actions Workflow YAML for Firefly Integration
    • JSON Output Example: Exporting Inventory
  • Troubleshooting & FAQs
    • Common Issues and Solutions
    • FAQs
  • General Information
    • Firefly API
      • Authentication
      • Inventory
      • Codification
      • Workflows
      • Self-Service
      • Policy & Governance
      • IaC Explorer
      • Event Center
      • Backup & Disaster Recovery
      • Notifications
      • Integrations
      • Identity & Access Management
    • Security & Compliance
    • Pricing Tiers & Add-ons
    • Contacting Support
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On this page
  • How the Inventory works and what it offers:
  • Comprehensive Multi-Cloud View
  • IaC Status & Classification
  • Rich Metadata & Search
  • Relationship Mapping
  • Change History & Traceability
  • Custom Views and Reports

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  1. Key Features

Cloud Asset Inventory

Firefly provides a Cross-Cloud Asset Inventory that gives you complete visibility into all your cloud resources and their IaC status. This feature is essentially your real-time cloud inventory dashboard, acting as an always up-to-date CMDB. As Firefly connects to your cloud accounts and Kubernetes clusters, it continuously discovers resources and updates their information.

How the Inventory works and what it offers:

Comprehensive Multi-Cloud View

In a single pane, you can see resources across AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, and even SaaS services like Okta, Datadog, Cloudflare, etc. Firefly normalizes data from all these sources into one searchable inventory. No more switching between AWS Console, Azure Portal, GCP GUI – everything is aggregated.

IaC Status & Classification

Every resource in the inventory is tagged with its IaC status:

  • Codified (managed by IaC and in sync)

  • Drifted (was managed by IaC but has deviated)

  • Unmanaged (created outside IaC)

  • Ghost (exists in code or state file but missing in cloud)

These labels let you instantly pinpoint resources that need attention. For example, you can filter to find all unmanaged assets (which you may want to codify) or all drifted ones (which you need to fix).

Rich Metadata & Search

Each resource entry is enriched with metadata like owner, cloud account, region, resource type, tags, configuration details, and even links to the IaC code or Terraform state managing it (if applicable). You can search and filter by any of these attributes. For instance, you might filter for Resource Type: EC2 and Tag: environment=dev to list all dev EC2 instances. Firefly's robust search and filtering make it easy to slice and dice the inventory to find exactly what you need.

Relationship Mapping

Firefly Inventory understands relationships between resources. You can select a resource and see related components (for example, an EC2 instance's attached volumes, or a Kubernetes pod's parent deployment). In the UI, Firefly can even show architecture diagrams mapping these connections, helping you comprehend complex architectures at a glance.

Change History & Traceability

For each resource, you can view historical changes and events. Firefly keeps an event log of modifications (e.g., if a security group rule changed or a tag was updated). Moreover, because it links resources to IaC, you can trace a resource back to the exact Terraform module and Git repository that created it. This traceability is extremely useful—if someone asks "where did this resource come from?", Firefly can point you to the code and commit that created it.

Custom Views and Reports

You can save custom filtered views of the inventory. For example, a view for "Production AWS untagged resources" or "K8s clusters and nodes in EU region" can be saved for quick access. These views update in real-time as inventory changes. Additionally, Firefly's inventory data can be exported (JSON/CSV) or fed into reports, so you can share summaries of your cloud assets with stakeholders.

Behind the scenes, Firefly continuously scans your environment to keep the inventory current. Unlike manual asset tracking or point-in-time audits, the inventory is real-time. New resources are discovered within minutes, and any changes (drifts, new tags, deletions) are reflected. This means you always have an up-to-date picture of your cloud.

By using Cloud Asset Inventory, you gain confidence that nothing in your cloud is "unknown" or overlooked. It lays the groundwork for governance and optimization by first answering: What do we have out there? Firefly provides that answer at your fingertips, anytime.

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Last updated 1 month ago

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