> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cloudthinker.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Infrastructure Assessment
> Run automated Well-Architected assessments on discovered resources and turn findings into a remediation plan.
Run Well-Architected assessments across any connected cloud — agents read your actual resource configuration and evaluate it against all six pillars, no questionnaire required. Screenshots show AWS, but the workflow is provider-agnostic.
Assessments are available on the **Scale** plan and above.
## Prerequisites
* A cloud connection with the permissions your agents need to read the resources you want to assess.
* [Resources](/guide/infrastructure/resources) already discovered in CloudThinker — assessments only evaluate discovered resources.
* Optional: tag or resource filters ready if you want to scope the run.
## Create an assessment
Go to **Assessment** and click **Create Assessment**.
Enter a clear name and optional description, then choose **Create**.
Your new assessment appears in the list with status **Pending**. Click **Run assessment** to configure it.
## Configure and run the assessment
Pick the pillars to evaluate:
| Pillar | What it checks |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| **Cost Optimization** | Right-sizing, reserved capacity, idle spend |
| **Security** | Encryption, access control, compliance |
| **Reliability** | Backup, redundancy, fault tolerance |
| **Performance Efficiency** | Throughput, latency, resource utilization |
| **Operational Excellence** | Monitoring, automation, runbook coverage |
| **Sustainability** | Resource efficiency, carbon footprint |
Choose the discovered resources to include. Scope to categories or specific resources — filter by service type, tags (for example `Environment: production`), or region, and use **Select All** on a filtered list. Only discovered resources are assessable.
Confirm pillars and selected resources, then click **Start Assessment**. A progress indicator shows resources as agents collect configuration, analyze usage patterns, and evaluate each pillar's best practices.
## Review results and take action
After the run, review analytics for findings by pillar, severity breakdown, potential savings, and scope. Multi-resource runs also surface the top affected resources and systemic patterns, such as widespread over-provisioning.
Expand recommendations by resource to see effort, risk, and remediation details. Sort by potential savings, severity, or effort to prioritize — fixing one systemic issue can resolve findings across many resources.
Click a recommendation to view impact analysis, savings, and implementation guidelines.
Choose how to proceed: run Impact Analytics to project the change before you make it, generate implementation guidelines, ask a custom prompt, or implement directly with agent assistance. Click **Start** to launch the action.
Recommendations are drafted by default — save them to make them appear on the
[Plan](/guide/infrastructure/plan) page, where you assign priority and track implementation over time.
## Run your first assessment: one resource, one pillar
For your first run, scope to a single resource and a single pillar to learn the workflow before scaling up. Good first candidates:
* An **EC2 instance** running a production workload
* An **RDS database** you suspect is over-provisioned
* An **S3 bucket** with unknown access patterns
Pick **Cost Optimization** or **Security** as the pillar — they typically surface the most actionable findings.
More resources and pillars mean longer assessment time. A single resource with one pillar takes 1–2 minutes. Scale gradually.
A first run against one over-provisioned instance might report: average CPU at 12% over 30 days, no Reserved Instance or Savings Plan coverage, and a recommendation to downsize with an estimated monthly saving. Once you've seen how it works, run the same pillar across all your EC2 instances to check whether over-provisioning is a systemic pattern.
After a large run, ask [Anna](/guide/agents/anna) to condense the results:
```text theme={null}
@anna #report Summarize the top 5 issues from this assessment and create an action plan
```
Run assessments monthly or after major infrastructure changes to catch drift and new issues. For day-to-day guardrails between runs, use [CloudKeepers](/guide/infrastructure/cloudkeepers).
## Next steps
Save assessment findings to Plan to track implementation and ROI
Set up daily guardrails to maintain the standards your assessment identified
Discover additional resources to include in your next assessment run
Deep-dive into cost findings from the Cost Optimization pillar
