Recommendations Guide

Overview

FinFocus can aggregate cost optimization recommendations from various cloud providers (via plugins) and present them in a unified, interactive terminal interface. This helps you identify right-sizing opportunities, idle resources, and other savings potential.

This guide covers how to view recommendations, filter them by type or priority, and use the interactive Terminal UI (TUI) to explore details.

Target Audience: DevOps Engineers, FinOps Practitioners

Prerequisites:

FinFocus CLI installed
Pulumi project configured
Cost plugins installed (e.g., vantage, aws-public) that support recommendations

Learning Objectives:

Run cost recommendation scans
Navigate the interactive recommendation table
Filter recommendations by category and priority
Export recommendations for reporting

Estimated Time: 10 minutes

Quick Start

Start finding savings in under 5 minutes.

Step 1: Run Recommendations Scan

Execute the recommendations command against your Pulumi plan:

finfocus cost recommendations --pulumi-json plan.json

Step 2: Navigate Interactive UI

The command opens an interactive table. Use arrow keys to navigate and Enter to see details.

Interactive recommendations table showing list of savings

Figure 1: Interactive recommendation table with savings summary.

Step 3: View Details

Select a recommendation to see actionable steps:

Recommendation Details
----------------------
Resource:   aws:ec2/instance:Web-Server
Action:     Right-size
Savings:    $45.00/month
Reason:     CPU utilization < 5% for 30 days
Suggested:  t3.medium -> t3.small

Interactive Controls

When running in interactive mode (default for TTY), use these keyboard shortcuts:

Key	Action
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate list
`Enter`	View recommendation details
`Esc`	Back to list (from details)
`/`	Filter list (future)
`q`	Quit

Filtering Recommendations

You can filter recommendations to focus on specific types of savings.

Filter Syntax

The --filter flag accepts key-value pairs:

finfocus cost recommendations --pulumi-json plan.json --filter "key=value"

Common Filters

Filter Key	Description	Example
`priority`	Importance level	`priority=high`
`category`	Savings category	`category=cost`
`savings`	Minimum savings	`savings>100` (future)

Example: High Priority Only

finfocus cost recommendations --pulumi-json plan.json --filter "priority=high"

Examples

Example 1: Non-Interactive Output (CI/CD)

Use Case: Export recommendations to JSON for reporting or automation.

Command:

finfocus cost recommendations --pulumi-json plan.json --output json > savings.json

Output Snippet:

{
  "summary": {
    "total_count": 1,
    "total_savings": 50.0,
    "currency": "USD",
    "count_by_action_type": { "RECOMMENDATION_ACTION_TYPE_RIGHTSIZE": 1 },
    "savings_by_action_type": { "RECOMMENDATION_ACTION_TYPE_RIGHTSIZE": 50.0 }
  },
  "recommendations": [
    {
      "resource_id": "i-1234567890abcdef0",
      "action_type": "RECOMMENDATION_ACTION_TYPE_RIGHTSIZE",
      "description": "Switch to t3.small",
      "estimated_savings": 50.0,
      "currency": "USD",
      "id": "rec-123",
      "category": "RECOMMENDATION_CATEGORY_COST",
      "priority": "RECOMMENDATION_PRIORITY_HIGH",
      "confidence_score": 0.82,
      "source": "kubecost",
      "impact": { "projection_period": "monthly", "current_cost": 100.0, "projected_cost": 50.0 },
      "resource": { "name": "web", "region": "us-east-1", "tags": { "env": "prod" } }
    }
  ],
  "total_savings": 50.0,
  "currency": "USD"
}

The first five keys of each recommendation (resource_id, action_type, description, estimated_savings, currency) and status are stable. The remaining keys carry the full record the plugin returned and are omitted when the plugin did not report them: id, category, priority, confidence_score, source, created_at, metadata, reasoning, impact (projection_period, current_cost, projected_cost, savings_percentage, implementation_cost, migration_effort_hours) and resource (name, provider, resource_type, region, sku, tags, utilization). NDJSON output carries the same keys on each recommendation line. The table output is unchanged.

The id value is the identifier to pass to dismiss, snooze, undismiss and history.

Scores

When the optional scoring step is enabled, each recommendation also carries a scores object (risk, false_positive, worth_acting, priority, insufficient_evidence, duplicate_group_id and needs_review) and the output carries a scoring summary. Scores rank work for review; they never dismiss or apply anything.

Plugin Routing and Caching

Each resource is sent only to the plugins that the router selects for the Recommendations feature (see the routing guide). Internal Pulumi types are never sent to plugins.

Results are cached per request. The cache key includes the identity, provider, type and properties of every requested resource plus the IDs of dismissed recommendations, so a different set of resources, a changed property, or a new dismissal produces a fresh query. Older cache entries written under the previous key format are not matched and expire by TTL.

Example 2: Filtering by Category

Use Case: Focus only on “right-sizing” opportunities.

Command:

finfocus cost recommendations --pulumi-json plan.json --filter "category=rightsize"

Troubleshooting

Issue: No recommendations found

Symptoms:

Command runs successfully but shows “No recommendations found”

Cause:

Plugins may not be installed or configured
Cloud provider has no recommendations
Plan JSON might not match live resources

Solution:

Ensure you have a plugin installed (e.g., vantage) that provides recommendations and it is properly authenticated.

Issue: TUI not displaying correctly