Built for review, designed for governed action
CloudKnife helps teams improve cloud efficiency without giving up control. It starts with visibility and review, and can move toward policy-governed automation where the environment and rules support it.
Concrete behaviour, not slogans
Review first, explain always, narrow automation to explicit policy. The first pillar is the on-ramp everything else hangs on.
Read-only onboarding first
Connections start read-only. On Azure today we use roles such as Monitor Reader and Cost Reader to analyse usage, cost, metrics, tags, and resource metadata without changing your infrastructure. Other hyperscalers follow as we match the same quality standard for review, and we welcome security-minded early adopters on AWS or GCP.
Explainable recommendations
Each item carries rationale, expected impact, affected resources, and confidence so reviewers can challenge assumptions instead of trusting a black box.
Production-aware logic
Recommendations respect environment context, including different headroom and risk expectations for production and non-production workloads.
Review trail and accountability
History and ownership stay attached to recommendations so teams can see what was surfaced, who should respond, and how review changed over time.
Hosted in West Europe
CloudKnife runs in West Europe, aligned with an EU-focused way of working. We do not list formal certifications we have not completed.
What a governed recommendation looks like
The product keeps evidence, policy, and review state on one row so nothing important hides in a second tool.
Change window Sat 02:00 to 06:00 UTC. Owner approval required before any execution path, including where governed automation is enabled.
Based on observed usage and stated assumptions. Your numbers and currency follow your tenant.
Ownership and blast radius stay visible so reviewers know who signs off and what moves together.
This recommendation uses production headroom rules, the active policy pack, and the service owner list for the subscription. Nothing runs automatically from this view.
- Evidence and assumptions
- Impact and affected resources
- Production context and policy pack
- Owner and accountability
Where your organisation turns execution on, it stays inside explicit policy packs, approval rules, and change windows. Most teams stay review-first while those controls are rolled out. This item will not execute until gates clear.
Illustrative fields for marketing. Your tenant controls labels, policy packs, and whether any execution path is enabled.
Trust is earned in review before it is earned in automation. We say that plainly because it shapes what we build.
What CloudKnife does today
We keep this explicit so expectations match reality. The product earns trust in review before it earns trust in automation.
Today the focus is on insights, evidence, and reviewable recommendations. There is no universal unattended apply path across every customer. Where execution or deeper integrations appear, they are framed as governed, policy-based, and opt-in, not as silent change.
- Insights across usage and spend with enough context to be actionable in review, not only charts.
- Evidence surfaced next to recommendations so operators can verify claims without exporting raw dumps.
- Reviewable recommendations as the default path: structured items your team accepts, adjusts, or rejects.
- A trust-building start: read-only access first, narrow scope, and no promise of silent change across your cloud.
- Automation described honestly: where it exists or is planned, it is policy-governed and approval-bound, not blind execution.
Guardrails that keep humans in charge
Assisted analysis stays bounded. Outputs are structured for review, not for silent execution.
- Scoped guidance
Suggestions stay inside clear operational boundaries so teams know what class of change is being proposed.
- Human-led decisions
Recommendations are explainable. Your people approve, defer, or reject. The product does not override change management.
- Governance alignment
Risk tolerance, ownership, and policy context stay visible next to each item so approvals map to how you already ship.
- Traceability
Rationale and evidence attach to recommendations so reviews and audits stay grounded, not pieced together from memory later.
Least privilege, limited scope, you stay in control
Short and direct. We avoid certification language we cannot substantiate.
- Least privilege
Access is scoped to what analysis requires. We do not ask for broad admin rights to deliver recommendations.
- Limited data scope
We focus on operational and cost signals needed for efficiency work, not a full copy of all your data.
- Teams stay in control
Review and approval stay on your side. CloudKnife prepares and explains; it does not override your change management.
CloudKnife is built so teams can review clearly, automate deliberately, and stay accountable.
Questions about access, data handling, or how review maps to automation in your environment? We answer with specifics, not generic safety language.