Cloud infrastructure is messy. When an alert fires "EC2 instance unresponsive" or "High CPU utilization", the initial triage often feels like an archaeological dig. Analysts have to leave their ticketing system, authenticate into the AWS console (cue the MFA prompts), hunt for the specific resource ID, and remember the correct CLI syntax to get the ground truth.
This context-switching tax is heavy. It extends Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) and burns out analysts who spend more time gathering data than fixing problems.
This article explores a pre-built Tines workflow—Investigate AWS issues with CLI data using agents—that eliminates this manual data gathering by bringing the CLI directly to the case.
The problem: The "context gap" in incident response
In many organizations, there is a disconnect between where work is tracked (Jira, ServiceNow) and where the data lives (AWS, Azure, internal logs).
A "simple" investigation often involves:
Access Friction: Logging into multiple consoles and assuming roles.
Syntax Struggles: Wasting cycles figuring out the correct CLI syntax and flags to look up information, rather than simply retrieving the answer.
Security Risks: Giving analysts broad read-access to production environments just to check a status.
Manual processes like these are the enemy of scale. As noted in a recent Tines case study, for a major crowdfunding platform, moving from manual spreadsheets to orchestration reduced unpatched vulnerabilities by 83% in just 90 days.
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