Creating Targets
A Target is a logical group of AWS resources identified by service type, regions, and tags. Targets are the building blocks for Executions and Schedules — every action you run in frugally.app is aimed at one or more Targets.
Supported AWS services
| Service | Available actions |
|---|---|
| EC2 | Start, Stop |
| RDS | Start, Stop |
| Lambda | Enable, Disable |
| ECS | Scale Up, Scale Down |
| NAT Gateway | Create, Delete |
| VPC Endpoint | Enable, Disable |
frugally.app works best when resources are tagged with Environment (e.g. dev, staging, prod) and/or scheduling intent tags (e.g. schedule:true). Consistent tagging makes the Target Onboarding Wizard far more effective.
Option A: Target Onboarding Wizard (Recommended)
The wizard scans your AWS accounts, automatically detects resources, groups them into recommended Targets based on tags, and suggests schedules — all in one guided flow. Scanning is read-only; nothing is created until you confirm.
Open the Target Onboarding Wizard
Step 1 — Welcome
An overview of what the wizard does: read-only scanning, tag-based grouping, confidence scores, and production safety guardrails.
[SCREENSHOT: target-wizard-welcome.png — wizard welcome/entry framing screen]
Step 2 — Select Scope
Choose which Connections, AWS regions (max 10), and services (EC2, RDS, Lambda, ECS, NAT Gateway, VPC Endpoint) to include in the scan.
[SCREENSHOT: target-wizard-scope.png — scope selection with connections, regions, and services]
Step 3 — Scan & Discover
frugally.app scans your AWS accounts in parallel and lists all detected resources along with their tags.
[SCREENSHOT: target-wizard-scan-results.png — scan results showing discovered resources by service and region]
Step 4 — Review Recommendations
frugally.app groups resources into recommended Targets based on environment tags and scheduling intent tags. Each recommendation shows:
- Name (auto-generated, editable inline), service, region, and resource count
- Confidence score (High / Medium / Low) with expandable reasoning
- Non-production environments are pre-selected; production is flagged for caution
- Use the Select All High Confidence bulk action to speed things up
[SCREENSHOT: target-wizard-recommendations.png — recommendations list with confidence scores, checkboxes, and expandable reasoning]
Step 5 — Create Targets
Review your selected recommendations. Click Create and frugally.app creates the Target records.
[SCREENSHOT: target-wizard-review-create.png — review summary of targets about to be created]
Step 6 — Schedule Suggestions
For each created Target, the wizard suggests a default schedule (weekdays 7 AM – 7 PM in the region's timezone). Non-production Targets are auto-selected; production Targets are not.
[SCREENSHOT: target-wizard-schedule-suggestions.png — suggested schedules per target with checkboxes and timezone info]
You can choose Create Schedules & Finish or Skip Schedules & Finish.
Schedules created here use sensible defaults. You can customise them later on the Schedules page.
Option B: Manual Target Creation
For creating individual Targets when you know exactly what you want.
Navigate to Targets > Create Target (or use the link above) and fill in the form:
- Name — A descriptive label (e.g.
Dev EC2 eu-west-1) - Connections — Select one or more Connections (multi-select)
- Service Type — The AWS service to manage
- AWS Regions — One or more regions (multi-select)
- Tags — Key:value pairs, one per line
[SCREENSHOT: create-target-form.png — manual creation form with all fields]
How tag filtering works
Environment:develop+Service:api— AND logic: both tags must matchEnvironment:develop,staging— OR logic for the same key: either value matches- A key without a value matches all resources that have that tag key, regardless of value
For the full tag syntax reference, see Resource Tag Filtering.
Verifying your Target
After saving, check the resource count on the Targets list. This shows how many AWS resources matched your filters.
[SCREENSHOT: targets-list-populated.png — target list with matched resource count]
Double-check your tag key/value pairs, selected regions, and that the IAM role in each AWS account has the correct permissions.
Next up: Connecting Slack — set up notifications before you start running executions.