# Prepare to take a DigIF contact
<a name="prepare-contact"></a>

1.  Review CPU Core Planning for desired dataflows, and provide a list of cores the agent can use. See [CPU core planning](agent-instance-selection.md#cpu-core-planning). 

1. Review the AWS Ground Station Agent configuration file. See [AWS Ground Station Agent configuration](managing-agent.md#gs-agent-configuration). 

1. Confirm that the necessary performance tuning is applied. See [Tune your EC2 instance for performance](ec2-instance-performance-tuning.md).

1. Confirm you are following all the called out best practices. See [Best practices](best-practices.md).

1. Confirm that the AWS Ground Station Agent is started prior to the scheduled contact start time via:

   ```
   systemctl status aws-groundstation-agent
   ```

1. Confirm that the AWS Ground Station Agent is healthy prior to the scheduled contact start time via:

   ```
   aws groundstation get-dataflow-endpoint-group --dataflow-endpoint-group-id ${DATAFLOW-ENDPOINT-GROUP-ID} --region ${REGION}
   ```

   Verify that the `agentStatus` of your `awsGroundStationAgentEndpoint` is ACTIVE and the `auditResults` is HEALTHY.