Quickstart

From an empty workspace to a first governed snapshot, and what to look at once the data lands.

Getting useful output from Flux takes three things: a connection, one collection cycle, and about ten minutes of reading the results.

1. Connect a subscription #

Open Integrations and add the subscriptions you want in scope. Each needs a friendly name and its subscription ID.

Flux authenticates with a managed workload identity — there is no secret to paste or store. The identity needs read access to your resources and cost data:

Capability Why it is needed
Resource read Inventory, tags, configuration, and change detection
Cost Management read Actual and amortized cost, daily history
Advisor read Vendor recommendations, cross-checked against Flux findings
Metrics read Utilization for right-sizing and idle detection
Read-only by construction None of these grant write access. Flux performs no cloud mutation — it has no code path that resizes, deletes, or purchases anything.

2. Run the first synchronization #

Select Synchronize now. The first run takes longer than later ones because it has no history to build on, and it does several independent things at once:

inventory   → every resource in scope, normalized and snapshotted
cost        → month-to-date actual and amortized, by subscription and resource
advisor     → active vendor recommendations
policy      → compliance posture and exemptions
telemetry   → utilization summaries per resource

Each source completes independently. If one is throttled or fails, the others still land and the failure is shown rather than hidden — you will not get a silently partial estate.

Cost data has a built-in delay Billing data is not final for roughly two days. Flux excludes unfinalized days from totals, forecasts, and anomaly baselines. Today’s spend legitimately appears incomplete because it is.

3. Read the results #

Once the run finishes, work in this order:

  1. Overview — estate shape, month-to-date cost against the prior period, utilization coverage, and open opportunities.
  2. Data freshness — which sources completed, which are stale, and what coverage you actually have. Read this before trusting any total.
  3. Opportunities — the actionable queue, separated from findings that need more evidence.
  4. Reports — cost summary, allocation, commitments, and the executive summary.

What good looks like after a week #

A single run gives you a picture. A week gives you a baseline, which is when the more valuable features switch on:

  • Anomaly detection needs several weeks of matching-weekday history before it reports findings rather than a warming-up state.
  • Change detection needs at least two snapshots to produce a diff.
  • Right-sizing needs a full observation window of telemetry before it will call a machine oversized.
Set expectations with stakeholders Nothing here is broken during that period. Flux is explicit about warming-up states precisely so early numbers are not mistaken for settled ones.

Next steps #