u/kavee-core141

been curious about how people are using AI with AWS beyond generating Terraform or explaining error messages.

AWS environments can have a lot of moving pieces IAM, EC2/ECS, VPCs, CloudWatch, S3, Lambda, CI/CD, security tooling, etc.

for people running AWS in real environments:

• what AWS tasks have you actually found useful to delegate to AI?
• are you using AI for incident investigation or troubleshooting?
• do you let agents inspect your AWS environment, or keep them completely read-only?
• Has AI helped you understand relationships between resources when something breaks?
• Are you using AI to review Terraform/IaC before it reaches AWS?
• what AWS tasks are still too risky or context-heavy to give an agent?
• If an AI agent finds something wrong, would you rather have it explain the issue, propose a fix, or actually make the change?

I'm less interested in "AI will replace DevOps" discussions and more interested in what is genuinely saving AWS engineers time today.

What has actually worked for you?

there's a lot of discussion around increasingly capable agents, MCP, skills, tool use, computer use, memory, etc. !!!!

But I'm more interested in the boring question:

What are you actually letting an agent do every week?

For people using agents regularly:

• what tasks have become genuinely useful enough that you keep doing them?
• what tools/services do you give your agent access to?
• What do you still refuse to give it access to?
• do you prefer agents that operate through your existing tools, or standalone agent apps?
• Are you using MCP/skills in your daily workflow? If so, what actually made them useful?
• how much autonomy do you give an agent before requiring approval?
• what made you stop using an agent/workflow that looked impressive initially?
• what's one task where you wish your agent had better access to context or tools?

One thing I've noticed is that the impressive demos aren't necessarily the workflows people keep using.

I'd love to hear about the boring, repetitive, genuinely useful stuff you've ended up delegating.

Bonus: if your agent touches cloud infrastructure, what do you let it do there???

Posted here a while back looking for beta testers a few of you actually ran it and found real things, including someone who caught a stale access key they'd forgotten about, which was honestly the best feedback I could've asked for. Just launched on Product Hunt:

https://www.producthunt.com/products/plexavo?utm_source=other&utm_medium=social

Same tool, same ask as before if you run it against a real account, I'd rather hear what it found or where it broke than get a vote.

Been building Plexavo in public here and elsewhere for a few weeks

open-source AWS misconfiguration scanner, built for solo founders who

own an AWS account but don't have a security background. Live on

Product Hunt today:
https://www.producthunt.com/products/plexavo?utm_source=other&utm_medium=social

Biggest lesson from this whole process: posting early and getting real

people to actually run it against their own accounts mattered more than

any amount of polish would have. Happy to talk through any of it if

useful to anyone else validating something similar.

Building a tool that walks a live AWS account checking for

misconfigurations, and testing has been the hardest part not the

detection logic itself, but avoiding either (a) hitting real AWS

constantly in CI or (b) mocking so much the tests stop meaning

anything.

Using moto for the straightforward stuff, but some checks need

multi-service interactions (cross-referencing an EC2 instance's

security group with its actual open ports) that get awkward to mock

realistically. What do you all reach for here moto, LocalStack, a

disposable AWS test account, something else?

Curious how common this is. If you set up your own AWS account for your SaaS no dedicated ops or security person, just you did you ever actually go back and review it once things were live? Or was it more "deployed it, moved on, hope for the best"? Not judging at all, genuinely curious how many of us are in the same boat.

Side project I've been building while learning cybersecurity: a scanner for AWS misconfigurations public buckets, overly permissive IAM roles, logging gaps, that kind of thing.

The part I actually care about is the output. Most tools in this space dump a list of findings assuming you already know the terminology. Mine (optionally, using your own Claude API key) rewrites each finding into plain language what's wrong, what someone could actually do with it, and the exact command to fix it.

Open source (AGPL-3.0), runs locally with your own AWS credentials nothing gets sent anywhere. Free scan works fine without the AI part too, if you'd rather skip the API key.

repo: github.com/plexavo/plexavo

Would love feedback from anyone who runs it against their own account, especially if the explanations still feel confusing anywhere that's the part I'm actively trying to get right.

Not a sales post, genuinely curious how common this actually is. A lot of solo and small-team founders end up being the ones who set up their own cloud infrastructure!! not because they're security experts, but because there's no one else around to do it. I did the same thing, and while learning cybersecurity properly (separate from my actual business), I found real, would've-been-embarrassing misconfigurations sitting in my own AWS account. Nothing had gone wrong yet. I just had no idea they were there.

Tools for catching this already exist, but they're mostly built by and for security professionals the output assumes you already know what IAM privilege escalation or CloudTrail coverage means. If you don't have that background, the report is basically noise you scroll past.

So I built one that just tells you plainly: this is wrong, here's what someone could actually do with it, here's the exact fix. Free, open source, runs on your own machine with your own credentials nothing gets uploaded anywhere.

If you've set up your own AWS account and never had anyone properly check it would you actually want to know what's sitting in there, or is this the kind of thing you'd rather not think about until something breaks?

Most freelancers lose money on late invoices not because clients refuse to pay but because the follow-up feels awkward. They'd rather write off $500 than send a third reminder.

Existing reminder tools send robotic templates. Clients ignore them or feel insulted. The freelancer still ends up rewriting every email manually.

So I built an AI layer that solves the tone problem specifically:

- Freelancer sets their voice once (casual, professional, firm)
- AI generates each follow-up using the invoice context amount, days overdue, client history
- Sends on a schedule Day 3 friendly nudge, Day 10 firmer, Day 18 overdue notice, up to Day 30
- If the client replies to any email, the sequence pauses automatically
- Payment detected, it stops completely

The AI messages actually sound human, not templated.

The hardest part wasn't the AI it was getting the escalation tone right. A Day 3 nudge and a Day 25 notice need completely different energy but both need to sound like the same person wrote them.

Would love feedback from anyone working with AI in business communication. What matters most tone accuracy or timing?

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5 months ago I built a SaaS for 3 months without talking to a single customer. Launched to zero users. Killed it.

Here's what I did differently the second time.

Before writing any code I spent 3 weeks on Reddit just asking freelancers one question: what's your actual process for following up on late invoices?

The answers were almost all the same. They send one reminder, maybe two, then stop. Not because they forgot. Because it feels personal and awkward. Like they're begging for money they already earned.

One freelancer told me they wrote off $800 in a single month because sending the third reminder felt worse than losing the money.

That told me three things:

The pain is emotional, not logistical Existing tools solve the wrong problem (workflow instead of avoidance). People would pay to never feel that way again

So I built forrcle. AI writes payment follow-ups in your tone, sends them on schedule, stops when the client replies or pays. Set it once, never think about it.

Biggest lesson: 3 months of building in silence taught me nothing. 3 weeks of conversations taught me everything.

Free tier available. Would love feedback from anyone who's dealt with this. Building forrcle SOLO.

V1 the failure (January - April)

Built a freelancer nice-to-have too for 3 months. Thought I was building something big.

Reality check:

Zero validation before building, tried to replace giants at once needed two people to get value from the product Launched to zero users

Diagnosed my own mistakes within days. Killed it.

The pivot validation first (May)

Did the complete opposite. Spent 3 weeks on Reddit talking to freelancers before writing one line of code. Posted in many subreddits. Just asking questions, listening.

The same pain kept surfacing: freelancers don't struggle with sending invoices. They struggle with the follow-up. Specifically the dread of it. One person told me they lost $800 across three invoices in a month not because the client refused, because sending the third reminder felt worse than losing the money.

V2 the build (3 weeks) MVP

forrcle AI-powered payment follow-up for freelancers.

You send the invoice AI writes follow-up reminders in your tone (not robotic templates) Sends them on a schedule Day 3, 10, 18, 25, 30 Client replies? Sequence pauses automatically Payment detected? It stops

Built the entire thing solo in 3 weeks.

What I learned:

3 months building in silence taught me nothing. 3 weeks of conversations taught me everything. The pain that makes people pay isn't "I need a tool." It's "I need to stop feeling this way" Validation doesn't mean people say "cool idea." It means they describe their exact scenario without you prompting it. Ship ugly. Fix later. The live product taught me more in 2 days than the spec taught me in 2 weeks

Where I am now:

Live at forrcle.com. Free tier, 2 active invoices, no card needed. Pro $19/month. Zero revenue. Zero paying customers yet. Just launched distribution this week.

Solo founder. No co-founder, no funding, no support system. Just building anyway.

Happy to answer anything about the process honestly. Roast the product if you want.

Agencies, Freelancers don't lose money because they forget to follow up. They lose it because following up feels awkward. One person told me they lost $800 in a single month across three invoices not because clients refused to pay, but because sending the third reminder felt worse than losing the money.

So I built Forrcle.

What it does:

You send the invoice Forrcle sends follow-ups on a schedule (Day 3, 10, 18, 25, 30) (FULLY Customize scheduling coming soon !!) Every message is written by AI in your tone & auto calibrating the tone in every reminder by considering its payment deadline and how many days passed the deadline not a robotic template Client replies? Sequence pauses automatically Payment detected? It stops. And tracks the invoice details.

Set it once per invoice. Never think about it again.

forrcle

Free tier with 2 active invoices, no card needed. Pro is $19/month.

Solo founder, 18. This is my second attempt after V1 failed from zero validation. Would love honest feedback.