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Dex Capabilities

Dex helps with cloud cost, ownership, and opportunity work. Its main job is to turn connected Cloud ex Machina context into clear answers and practical next steps.

Answer cloud cost questions​

Dex can explain spend, usage, and trends using the data available in Cloud ex Machina.

Use it to ask:

  • What changed over a time period.
  • Which services, accounts, projects, or teams are driving spend.
  • Where costs are growing or shrinking.
  • Which areas deserve a closer look.

Dex can summarize findings in plain language and, when useful, format information as tables or charts.

Create visualizations​

Dex can turn cloud data and architecture context into visual outputs that are easier to review, share, or include in an artifact.

Dex can produce:

  • Tables for detailed comparisons, asset lists, opportunity rankings, and cost breakdowns.
  • Graphs such as bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and other chart types that fit the data.
  • AWS, Azure, or GCP architecture diagrams that explain resources, dependencies, and proposed changes.
  • Mermaid diagrams, including flowcharts, sequence diagrams, state diagrams, and other Mermaid graph formats.

Use visualizations when a plain-text answer would be too hard to scan. For example, ask Dex to compare opportunities in a table, chart weekly spend by service, map the architecture around a workload, or show the decision flow for a remediation plan.

Visual outputs can be downloaded as images. When Dex generates a table, you can also download the underlying data as a CSV file.

Explain opportunities and quick wins​

Dex can help users understand opportunities surfaced by Cloud ex Machina.

It can explain:

  • What the opportunity is.
  • Why it matters.
  • Which assets or teams are involved.
  • The expected cost impact.
  • What evidence supports the recommendation.
  • What risks or tradeoffs should be reviewed before acting.

For quick wins, Dex can help identify the simplest next action and prepare a short handoff message.

Find owners and context​

When organization and identity data are connected, Dex can help connect cloud assets to the people or teams most likely to know them.

Ask Dex to:

  • Find likely owners for an asset, workload, or opportunity.
  • Summarize the context an owner needs before taking action.
  • Explain why a team appears connected to a resource.
  • Prepare a message for the right channel or ticket.

Ownership can be imperfect when source systems are incomplete. Dex should be used to speed up routing, not to override your team's ownership process.

Track follow-up work​

Dex can help turn a conversation into action. It can capture agreed next steps, summarize decisions, and help users remember what needs follow-up.

Useful questions include:

  • "What are the next steps?"
  • "What decision do we need from the owner?"
  • "Summarize this for a ticket."
  • "What did we agree to do?"

When ticketing integrations are configured, Cloud ex Machina can help move work into the systems your teams already use.

Create and iterate on artifacts​

Dex can generate artifacts when a conversation needs more than a chat answer. An artifact is a shared surface for analysis, plans, summaries, or code-change proposals that people can review together.

Artifacts are useful when you want to:

  • Share a deep-dive analysis with a team.
  • Turn a conversation into a remediation plan.
  • Compare options before deciding what to do.
  • Include tables, graphs, architecture diagrams, or Mermaid diagrams in the review.
  • Review generated code changes before they move into an engineering process.
  • Keep comments and revisions tied to the original opportunity or discussion.

At any point, you can ask Dex to generate an artifact from the current conversation or opportunity. After that, you can keep iterating in chat or comment directly on the artifact.

Comment on artifacts​

Artifacts support inline comments, so reviewers can leave feedback on the exact part of an analysis, plan, or code-change proposal they want to improve.

Those comments can be sent back to Dex. Dex can then use the feedback to produce an updated version of the artifact, such as:

  • A clearer analysis.
  • A revised implementation plan.
  • A safer remediation proposal.
  • A code-change draft that accounts for reviewer feedback.
  • A summary that better fits the intended audience.

This makes artifact review collaborative: users can discuss the work broadly in chat, leave precise notes inline, and ask Dex to fold the feedback into a new version.

Shift left into code​

When Cloud ex Machina is connected to Git repositories that contain infrastructure or application code, Dex can help move recommendations closer to where engineers make changes.

Dex can help with:

  • Connecting an opportunity to the repository or files that likely need attention.
  • Explaining why a code-level change would move the recommendation forward.
  • Drafting a code diff for review.
  • Generating an artifact that explains the proposed change and its expected impact.
  • Opening a pull request when your Git integration and approval process allow it.

This is useful for infrastructure-as-code changes, application configuration changes, and other code-managed cloud decisions. Dex keeps the recommendation tied to the original opportunity, so reviewers can see the cost or operational reason behind the proposed change.

Generated diffs and pull requests should be reviewed like any other engineering change. Confirm scope, tests, environment impact, rollback approach, and owner approval before merging.

Ask clarifying questions​

If a decision is blocked, Dex may ask a focused clarifying question instead of guessing. This is useful when a recommendation depends on a business constraint, owner preference, environment criticality, or acceptable risk level.

Examples:

  • Which environment should be reviewed first?
  • Should the team optimize for lowest risk or highest savings?
  • Who should own the first review?
  • Should this be tracked as a ticket or handled in chat?

Work in channels​

When connected to Slack or Microsoft Teams, Dex can participate where teams already discuss cloud work. It can answer questions in threads, keep the conversation tied to the surrounding context, and provide summaries or next steps without requiring users to switch tools.

Channel behavior depends on the connected provider and your organization's configuration.

Stay within connected context​

Dex is strongest when answering from connected Cloud ex Machina data. If data is missing, stale, or outside the connected systems, Dex may ask for clarification or explain that it cannot verify the answer.

For production changes, use Dex's output as a starting point and apply your normal engineering, security, and change-management review.