Terraform Cost Review

Overview

Cost analysis framework for Terraform AWS components. Every resource must be toggleable or right-sizable per environment so non-production environments never pay production prices.

When to Use

• Reviewing a new Terraform component before deployment
• Evaluating existing components for cost optimization
• Planning environment-specific variable overrides in Atmos stacks
• After receiving a surprisingly high AWS bill
• During FinOps review of infrastructure components

When NOT to Use

• Pure application code changes with no infrastructure impact
• Reviewing Atmos stack YAML without underlying component changes
• Terraform modules that don't create AWS resources (e.g., label/naming modules)
• When the user explicitly asks for a security or compliance review only

Cost Analysis Process

Step 1: Resource Inventory

Read all .tf files and inventory every resource that incurs AWS charges. Categorize by networking, compute, storage, database, monitoring, and security. See pricing-reference.md for resource categories and approximate costs.

Step 2: Configuration Analysis

For each cost-driving resource, check:

• Toggleability -- Is there an enable_* variable to disable in dev?
• Sizing -- Are instance types, CIDR sizes, counts configurable via variables?
• Scaling -- Can counts be reduced (AZs, replicas, NAT gateways)?
• Retention -- Are log retention periods configurable and bounded?
• Tier selection -- Are storage classes, instance families configurable?
• Data transfer -- Are there unnecessary cross-AZ or cross-region transfers?

Step 3: Environment-Specific Recommendations

For each variable that affects cost, recommend values for dev, staging, and production. See pricing-reference.md for common variable patterns.

Common Cost Traps

Trap	Typical Monthly Cost	Fix
3 NAT gateways in dev	~$100 + data transfer	Add enable_nat_gateway and nat_gateway_count variables
Flow logs to CloudWatch (high traffic)	$50-500 at scale	Set bounded retention_in_days, consider S3 destination
/16 subnets from IPAM	Wastes IP space	Use /20 or /24, make configurable
VPC interface endpoints everywhere	$7.50/endpoint/AZ/month	Toggle with enable_vpc_endpoints, use free gateway endpoints for S3/DynamoDB
Infinite CloudWatch log retention	Grows unbounded	Always set explicit retention_in_days
EIPs without NAT gateways	$3.60/month each unused	Conditional creation tied to NAT gateway enable flag
Cross-AZ data transfer	$0.01/GB	Co-locate when possible, or accept as HA cost

Supporting Files

• pricing-reference.md -- AWS resource pricing, inventory categories, and environment variable patterns
• report-template.md -- Full output format template for cost review reports