Read-only AI agent audits AWS without write access

AWS auditing can be handled by a Kiro Crew or Amazon Q Developer CLI agent built from a JSON configuration and a Markdown checklist, with safety enforced through IAM rather than prompt instructions. The setup uses AWS-managed SecurityAudit and ViewOnlyAccess policies, limiting the agent to read operations such as Get*, List*, and Describe*, while an additional use_aws service allowlist restricts the services it can query.

The agent connects to MCP servers for Well-Architected security checks, CloudTrail, AWS pricing, and documentation, then runs checklist-driven reviews for issues such as public S3 buckets, exposed SSH, disabled GuardDuty, missing Access Analyzer, unencrypted storage, idle Elastic IPs, orphaned snapshots, and gp2 volumes. Its prompt requires observed resource IDs, real pricing data, no invented findings, and a gaps section for anything not verified.

In a demo scoped to resources tagged demo-auditor=true, the agent identified a public S3 bucket, a security group open to 0.0.0.0/0 on SSH, GuardDuty disabled in us-east-1, and an unassociated Elastic IP estimated at $3.65/month. The design is positioned as a fast, conversational first look at security and cost, not a replacement for certified compliance tools or automated remediation.