🚀 InvenTag Quick Start Guide

Get up and running with InvenTag in minutes!

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• AWS CLI configured with appropriate permissions
• Required Python packages (install with pip install -r requirements.txt)

Basic Usage

1. Simple BOM Generation

Generate a basic Excel BOM for your default AWS account with optimized discovery:

# Unix/Linux/macOS (auto-detects python3/python)
./inventag.sh --create-excel

# Windows (auto-detects python3/python/py)
inventag.bat --create-excel

# Direct Python (use python3 if available)
python3 -m inventag_cli --create-excel

✨ Enhanced Performance: InvenTag automatically uses the optimized discovery system for 3-4x faster resource discovery with better service coverage.

2. Multi-Format Output

Generate Excel, Word, and Google Docs reports:

# Excel and Word documents (scripts auto-detect Python)
./inventag.sh --create-excel --create-word --verbose

# All formats including Google Docs (requires Google API credentials)
./inventag.sh --create-excel --create-word --create-google-docs --verbose

3. Multi-Account Setup

Create an accounts configuration file:

{
  "accounts": [
    {
      "account_id": "123456789012",
      "account_name": "Global Production",
      "profile_name": "prod-profile",
      "regions": ["us-east-1", "us-west-2", "ap-southeast-1", "eu-west-1"]
    },
    {
      "account_id": "123456789013", 
      "account_name": "APAC Development",
      "profile_name": "dev-profile",
      "regions": ["ap-southeast-1", "ap-north-1", "ap-south-1"]
    },
    {
      "account_id": "123456789014",
      "account_name": "All Regions Account",
      "profile_name": "global-profile",
      "regions": []
    }
  ]
}

Note: Empty regions array means scan all available AWS regions (default behavior).

Then run:

./inventag.sh --accounts-file accounts.json --create-excel

4. Multi-Region Selection

Specify regions to scan across all accounts:

# Scan specific regions globally
./inventag.sh --create-excel \
  --account-regions us-east-1,us-west-2,ap-southeast-1,ap-north-1

# Asia-Pacific regions only
./inventag.sh --create-excel \
  --account-regions ap-southeast-1,ap-southeast-2,ap-north-1,ap-south-1

# European regions with GDPR compliance
./inventag.sh --create-excel \
  --account-regions eu-west-1,eu-west-2,eu-central-1 \
  --compliance-standard gdpr

# All regions (default behavior)
./inventag.sh --create-excel --verbose

5. Advanced Analysis

Enable comprehensive analysis features:

./inventag.sh \
  --create-excel \
  --enable-network-analysis \
  --enable-security-analysis \
  --enable-cost-analysis \
  --verbose

6. Production Deployment

For production use with S3 upload and security features:

./inventag.sh \
  --accounts-file accounts.json \
  --create-excel --create-word \
  --enable-network-analysis --enable-security-analysis --enable-cost-analysis \
  --s3-bucket my-reports-bucket \
  --s3-key-prefix bom-reports/$(date +%Y-%m-%d)/ \
  --compliance-standard soc2 \
  --enable-production-safety --security-validation \
  --audit-output security-audit.json \
  --verbose

Configuration Examples

Service Descriptions

Customize service descriptions in your BOM:

# service-descriptions.yaml
EC2:
  default_description: "Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Virtual servers"
  resource_types:
    Instance: "Virtual machine instances"
    Volume: "Block storage volumes"

S3:
  default_description: "Amazon Simple Storage Service - Object storage"
  resource_types:
    Bucket: "Storage containers"

Use with:

# Using the provided example
./inventag.sh --create-excel --service-descriptions config/defaults/services/service_descriptions_example.yaml

# Or create your own
./inventag.sh --create-excel --service-descriptions service-descriptions.yaml

Tag Mappings

Map AWS tags to custom BOM columns:

# tag-mappings.yaml
"Environment":
  column_name: "Environment"
  default_value: "Unknown"

"inventag:owner":
  column_name: "Resource Owner"
  default_value: "Unassigned"

Use with:

# Using the provided example
./inventag.sh --create-excel --tag-mappings config/defaults/mappings/tag_to_column_mappings_example.yaml

# Or create your own
./inventag.sh --create-excel --tag-mappings tag-mappings.yaml

Common Commands

# Validate configuration
./inventag.sh --accounts-file accounts.json --validate-config

# Validate credentials
./inventag.sh --accounts-file accounts.json --validate-credentials

# Debug mode
./inventag.sh --create-excel --debug --log-file debug.log

# Interactive account setup with Google Docs
./inventag.sh --accounts-prompt --create-excel --create-google-docs

# Cross-account role assumption
./inventag.sh --cross-account-role InvenTagRole --create-excel

# CI/CD integration with security validation
./inventag.sh \
  --accounts-file $ACCOUNTS_CONFIG \
  --create-excel \
  --s3-bucket $REPORTS_BUCKET \
  --max-concurrent-accounts 8 \
  --security-validation --compliance-standard soc2

Output Files

InvenTag generates files in the bom_output directory (or your specified output directory):

• AWS_BOM_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.xlsx - Excel workbook with multiple sheets
• AWS_BOM_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.docx - Professional Word document
• state_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.json - State file for change tracking

Performance Features

InvenTag includes an Optimized Discovery System that provides significant performance improvements:

Key Performance Benefits

Feature	Benefit
3-4x Faster Discovery	Parallel processing and service-specific patterns
Enhanced Service Coverage	Better detection of CloudFront, IAM, Route53, S3, Lambda
Higher Quality Results	98% of resources achieve high confidence scores
Intelligent Field Mapping	Service-specific extraction for better accuracy

Performance Tips

# Maximum performance with parallel processing
./inventag.sh --create-excel --max-concurrent-accounts 6

# Focus on specific services for faster processing
./inventag.sh --create-excel --service-filters ec2,s3,rds,lambda

# Single region for fastest discovery
./inventag.sh --create-excel --account-regions us-east-1

The optimized discovery system is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration.

Next Steps

• Read the Complete CLI User Guide
• Check out Configuration Examples
• Learn about Production Safety
• See Troubleshooting Guide
• Explore Optimized Discovery System

Need Help?

• Use ./inventag.sh --help for command-line help
• Enable --debug for detailed logging
• Check the documentation for comprehensive guides