Skip to main content

What is Overmind?

Overmind is a tool that shows you the real impact of infrastructure changes before you deploy them. By analyzing your Terraform plans and discovering live dependencies across your AWS and Kubernetes environments, Overmind reveals which resources could be affected by your changes and identifies potential risks that aren't visible in standard Terraform output.

The Problem We Solve​

Modern infrastructure creates invisible dependencies that Terraform can't see. When you change a security group, update an AMI, or modify a database configuration, the blast radius extends far beyond what's in your .tf files. Critical services might depend on that "simple" change in ways that only become apparent after something breaks.

Teams end up in one of two scenarios:

  • Move fast and break things: Deploy changes without understanding their full impact
  • Death by review: Senior engineers spend countless hours reviewing routine changes because they're the only ones who understand the hidden dependencies

How Overmind Works​

Overmind combines three key capabilities to give you confidence in your infrastructure changes:

1. Real-Time Discovery​

When you run overmind terraform plan, it connects to your live AWS and Kubernetes environments through read-only APIs. This discovers all your resources and their actual relationships - not just what Terraform knows about, but everything that exists in your environment.

2. Blast Radius Analysis​

Overmind maps dependencies across 100+ AWS resource types and Kubernetes objects. It shows you which resources might be affected by your changes, including cross-account dependencies and relationships that span multiple services.

3. Risk Assessment​

Using the dependency map and pattern analysis, Overmind identifies potential issues with your changes. Instead of cryptic technical output, you get human-readable explanations of what could go wrong and why.

Core Concepts​

Blast Radius​

The complete set of infrastructure resources that could be affected by your change. This includes direct dependencies (resources you're modifying) and indirect ones (resources that depend on what you're changing).

Change Analysis​

The process of evaluating a Terraform plan to understand its potential impact. This includes mapping resources, calculating blast radius, and identifying risks.

Sources​

Configurations that define how Overmind accesses your infrastructure. Sources can be temporary (using your local credentials) or permanent (using IAM roles for continuous access).

Managed Sources​

Persistent connections to your infrastructure that allow Overmind to maintain up-to-date dependency maps and provide faster analysis.

When to Use Overmind​

Overmind is particularly valuable when:

  • Your infrastructure includes resources created outside Terraform (console, CloudFormation, other tools)
  • You need to understand cross-service or cross-account dependencies
  • Team members have varying levels of infrastructure knowledge
  • You want to reduce reliance on "tribal knowledge" for safe deployments
  • You're making changes to production systems where downtime is costly

Key Benefits​

For Individual Developers​

  • Deploy with confidence: Understand the full impact before making changes
  • Learn faster: See how infrastructure pieces connect without needing years of experience
  • Reduce mistakes: Catch potential issues before they cause outages

For Teams​

  • Faster reviews: Focus expert time on truly risky changes, not routine updates
  • Better onboarding: New team members can understand infrastructure dependencies visually
  • Reduced downtime: Identify and prevent cascading failures before they happen

For Organizations​

  • Accelerate deployment velocity: Teams can move faster when they understand risks
  • Improve reliability: Prevent outages caused by hidden dependencies
  • Scale infrastructure knowledge: Reduce bottlenecks around senior engineers

Getting Started​

The fastest way to see Overmind in action is through the CLI:

# Install the CLI
brew install overmindtech/overmind/overmind-cli

# Navigate to your Terraform project
cd your-terraform-project

# Analyze your changes
overmind terraform plan

This will analyze your planned changes, discover your infrastructure, and show you the potential impact in your browser.

Next Steps​

Want to try it out? → Quick Start Guide

Planning a production deployment? → Sources Configuration

Ready to integrate with CI/CD? → GitHub Actions

Have questions? → FAQ or Support

Watch Demo​

Watch the video