Payload recording and comparison techniques for discovery

Persistent storage may contain an input discovery payload that contains entries representing configuration items and relationships therebetween, wherein the configuration items contain attributes defining devices, components, or applications on a network. One or more processors may be configured to: provide, for display, a graphical user interface containing a representation of the input discovery payload and a button; provide the input discovery payload to an identification and reconciliation engine (IRE) software application; receive, from the IRE software application, an output discovery payload that includes a log generated from execution of the IRE software application on the input discovery payload, wherein the log indicates, for the configuration items and the relationships in the input discovery payload, how a configuration management database (CMDB) would be updated by the IRE software application; and provide, for display, a further graphical user interface containing a further representation of the output discovery payload.