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Tutorial: Use the AI Assistant to Explain Your Infrastructure#

Master Cloudeval's AI Chat for Instant Infrastructure Insights

This tutorial teaches you how to effectively use Cloudeval's AI chat assistant to understand, analyze, and optimize your cloud infrastructure.

Getting Started with AI Chat#

Opening the Chat#

Methods:

  1. Click the chat icon (bottom right)
  2. Press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on Mac)
  3. Use command: /chat in search

Your First Question#

Start simple:

What resources do I have?

The AI will:

  • List your resources
  • Group by type
  • Show counts
  • Highlight in diagram

Question Types#

Discovery Questions#

Learn what you have:

"Show me all my EC2 instances"

"List all S3 buckets"

"What databases are in my account?"

"Show me all resources in us-east-1"

Analysis Questions#

Understand your infrastructure:

"Explain the network topology"

"What's the relationship between these resources?"

"How does data flow through this architecture?"

"What are the dependencies for this application?"

Security Questions#

Find security issues:

"Find all publicly accessible resources"

"Show me resources without encryption"

"Which security groups allow port 22 from 0.0.0.0/0?"

"Identify compliance violations"

Cost Questions#

Optimize spending:

"What's my current AWS spending?"

"Find underutilized resources"

"Show me the most expensive resources"

"Recommend cost optimizations"

Troubleshooting Questions#

Debug issues:

"Why can't I access this resource?"

"Find resources with errors"

"What changed in the last hour?"

"Show me all resources in this VPC"

Advanced Techniques#

Context-Aware Questions#

The AI understands your current view:

  1. Select a resource in the diagram
  2. Ask: "What's connected to this?"
  3. AI uses selected resource as context

Follow-up Questions#

Build on previous answers:

You: "Show me all databases"
AI: [Lists databases]

You: "Which ones are encrypted?"
AI: [Filters to encrypted databases]

You: "What's the cost of the unencrypted ones?"
AI: [Shows cost analysis]

Diagram Interaction#

The AI can modify the diagram:

"Highlight all public resources"

"Zoom to the VPC"

"Show only EC2 instances"

"Group resources by environment tag"

Real-World Scenarios#

Scenario 1: Security Audit#

Goal: Find all security issues

You: "Perform a security audit"

AI: I found 5 security issues:
    1. S3 bucket 'public-data' is publicly accessible
    2. Security group 'sg-web' allows SSH from 0.0.0.0/0
    3. RDS database 'prod-db' has encryption disabled
    4. IAM role 'lambda-role' has overly permissive policy
    5. EC2 instance 'web-01' has no security group

    Would you like me to highlight these in the diagram?

You: "Yes, and show recommendations"

AI: [Highlights issues and shows fix recommendations]

Scenario 2: Cost Optimization#

Goal: Reduce cloud spending

You: "What's my current monthly AWS cost?"

AI: Your current monthly AWS spending is $3,450:
    - EC2 instances: $1,800 (52%)
    - RDS databases: $1,200 (35%)
    - S3 storage: $300 (9%)
    - Other: $150 (4%)

You: "Find ways to reduce costs"

AI: I found 3 optimization opportunities:
    1. 5 EC2 instances running at <10% CPU - save $400/month
    2. RDS database can be downsized - save $200/month
    3. 3 S3 buckets with no lifecycle policy - save $50/month

    Total potential savings: $650/month (19%)

You: "Show me the underutilized instances"

AI: [Highlights underutilized instances with details]

Scenario 3: Architecture Understanding#

Goal: Understand complex architecture

You: "Explain this infrastructure"

AI: This is a 3-tier web application:

    Tier 1 - Web Layer:
    - 3 EC2 instances behind Application Load Balancer
    - Auto Scaling Group (2-5 instances)
    - Public subnets in 2 AZs

    Tier 2 - Application Layer:
    - 2 EC2 instances in private subnets
    - Auto Scaling Group (2-4 instances)
    - Connected to web tier via security groups

    Tier 3 - Data Layer:
    - RDS Multi-AZ database
    - ElastiCache cluster
    - S3 buckets for storage

    Network:
    - VPC with public/private subnets
    - NAT Gateway for outbound internet
    - Internet Gateway for inbound traffic

You: "Show me the data flow"

AI: [Highlights data flow paths with arrows]

Pro Tips#

Be Specific#

Bad: "Tell me about my infrastructure"
Good: "Show me all EC2 instances in production"

Use Natural Language#

You don't need special syntax:

  • "Find resources without tags"
  • "What's the cost of my databases?"
  • "Show me the network flow"

Combine Questions#

Ask multiple things:

"Show me all public resources and their costs"

Use Filters#

Narrow down scope:

"Find EC2 instances in us-east-1 with tag Environment=Production"

Keyboard Shortcuts#

  • Ctrl+K / Cmd+K: Open chat
  • Esc: Close chat
  • Enter: Send message
  • Shift+Enter: New line
  • ↑: Previous message
  • ↓: Next message
  • Tab: Autocomplete

Limitations#

The AI chat:

  • Can read and analyze your infrastructure
  • Can provide insights and recommendations
  • Can highlight and filter resources
  • Cannot modify your infrastructure
  • Cannot access your data
  • Cannot make changes to resources

Next Steps#

Ready to master AI chat? Try asking questions about your infrastructure now!