The field of Cloud Operations and Platform Engineering has changed significantly. What began as basic Infrastructure as Code (IaC) deployments has developed into intricate multi-cloud orchestration issues that require capabilities beyond standard CI/CD tools.
To support this new reality, Firefly’s Workflow Runners transform a robust IaC integration platform into the industry's first all-encompassing infrastructure automation solution.
Unlike traditional IaC platforms that only see what's defined in your code, Firefly provides end-to-end infrastructure automation that spans from your version control system to your actual cloud resources
Going Beyond Traditional IaC Orchestration
For too long, DevOps and Platform Engineering teams have been forced to choose between fragmented solutions that only address part of their infrastructure automation needs. Many solutions on the market offer solid IaC orchestration capabilities, but they leave critical gaps in your infrastructure management workflow. They can help you deploy infrastructure, but what happens when you discover unmanaged resources drifting in your cloud environments? What about the resources created through ClickOps that exist outside your IaC workflows entirely?
Firefly Runners changes this equation completely, and addresses the reality that most organizations face: a hybrid world where IaC coexists with manually created resources, legacy systems, and third-party integrations.
The Evolution of Firefly Workflows
Our customers love our workflows capabilities, and have since they launched. But over time, we’ve heard a consistent message from our community: "We love the visibility and governance from Firefly, but we want you to handle the orchestration too."
Teams want to reduce their toolchain complexity while gaining access to Firefly's unique cloud discovery and auto-import capabilities directly within their deployment workflows.
Firefly Runners represents our response to this demand. By providing managed execution environments specifically designed for IaC orchestration, we're delivering the industry's first truly integrated infrastructure automation platform that bridges the gap between your code repositories and your actual cloud footprint.
Originally, Firefly Workflows offered the option to use cloud practitioners’ own CI/CD pipelines, and use Firefly as an IaC automation platform. Now, you also have the option to use Firefly’s CI/CD pipelines, and leverage Firefly as a complete IaC orchestrator.
Introducing Firefly Runners: Managed IaC Orchestration
Firefly Runners are secure, managed execution environments that handle your Terraform, OpenTofu, and Terragrunt deployments while leveraging Firefly's comprehensive cloud scanning and asset management capabilities. Think of them as your dedicated infrastructure automation workforce, always available, pre-configured with the tools you need, and deeply integrated with Firefly's cloud intelligence.
Here’s what Firefly Runners make possible:
1. Automated Plan and Apply Workflows: Streamlined Infrastructure Deployment
Firefly Runners provide intelligent automation that transforms Infrastructure as Code deployment management by creating event-driven workflows that respond seamlessly to your Version Control System changes. This system eliminates traditional pipeline complexity while maintaining enterprise-grade reliability and security.
2. Intelligent Plan Automation
When developers propose changes through pull requests, Firefly Runners immediately detect IaC-relevant modifications in your Terraform, OpenTofu, or Terragrunt configurations. The system analyzes changed files, triggers terraform plan operations, and creates isolated execution environments that mirror your production settings. Each plan runs with the exact versions and variable configurations specified in your workspace, ensuring an accurate preview of infrastructure changes.
3. Policy Enforcement with Guardrails
After plan generation, Guardrails automatically analyze the proposed changes against your configured policies. When violations are detected, Guardrails can block the deployment, alert administrators, or allow authorized overrides for exceptional circumstances. This governance layer ensures compliance with your organization's security and operational requirements before changes reach your infrastructure.
4. Seamless Apply Execution
Upon pull request approval and merge to your primary branch, Firefly Runners automatically orchestrate the apply phase with sophisticated safety mechanisms. The system verifies that approved changes match the deployment exactly and maintains detailed audit trails. All operations run in secure and isolated containers.
5. Enhanced Developer Experience
The automation integrates deeply with your existing development workflows, posting detailed plan summaries as pull request comments and providing real-time status updates. This creates immediate visibility into proposed infrastructure changes while maintaining your established code review processes and branch protection rules.
This comprehensive automation ensures consistent execution across all infrastructure deployments, reduces human error, and accelerates development cycles while providing superior security and compliance compared to traditional deployment approaches.
6. Deep Cloud Integration
Unlike traditional IaC platforms that only see resources defined in your code, Firefly Runners leverage our comprehensive cloud scanning capabilities to discover unmanaged resources and automatically import them into your IaC workflows. This means you can finally achieve true infrastructure-as-code coverage, even in environments with significant manual resource creation.
7. Built-in Governance and Compliance
Every execution includes automatic policy enforcement through Firefly's Guardrails system. Your deployments are automatically checked against cost thresholds, security policies, resource restrictions, and tagging requirements before they reach your cloud environments.
8. AI-Powered Remediation
When infrastructure drift is detected or policy violations occur, Firefly Runners can automatically generate and apply remediation code, turning alerts into actionable fixes without manual intervention.
What Makes Firefly, and Our Runners, Unique?
While many solutions focus solely on IaC orchestration, Firefly provides complete infrastructure automation that includes:
Universal Cloud Scanning: Firefly continuously scans your entire cloud footprint across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, and SaaS platforms. This scanning identifies unmanaged resources, security vulnerabilities, and cost optimization opportunities that traditional IaC platforms miss entirely.
Automated Resource Discovery: When Firefly discovers unmanaged resources in your cloud environments, it can automatically generate the IaC code needed to bring them under management. This capability is essential for organizations with mixed managed/unmanaged infrastructure.
Cross-Platform Visibility: Firefly provides a unified view of your infrastructure across multiple cloud providers, Kubernetes clusters, and SaaS applications. This comprehensive visibility enables better decision-making and more effective resource management.
Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Beyond basic deployment logs, Firefly provides detailed analytics on resource utilization, cost trends, security posture, and compliance status across your entire infrastructure.
Getting Started with Firefly Runners
Implementing Firefly Runners is designed to be straightforward for teams already using Infrastructure as Code. The process involves creating a Workspace in Firefly that connects to your version control system, configuring your deployment variables and cloud authentication, and defining your governance policies.
Firefly Runners support all major Terraform, OpenTofu, and Terragrunt configurations, making migration from existing IaC platforms seamless. The managed execution environment handles tool installation, state management, and deployment orchestration, allowing your team to focus on infrastructure design rather than pipeline maintenance.
For teams with existing CI/CD investments, Firefly Runners can be adopted incrementally. You can start with Firefly's CI/CD integration capabilities and gradually migrate to Firefly Runners as your confidence in the platform grows.
Dive deeper and explore our documentation on Firefly Runners.
Ready to experience the future of infrastructure automation? Try Firefly for free and discover how complete infrastructure automation can transform your DevOps practices.
