The disclosed technology relates to intent driven network management. A system is configured to maintain an inventory store comprising records for a set of network entities in a network, wherein each network entity in the set of network entities is associated with a record in the inventory store. The system receives a user intent statement comprising an action and a flow filter representing network data flows on which the action is to be applied and queries, based on the flow filter, the inventory store to identify a plurality of network entities in the set of network entities to which the user intent statement applies. The system generates a plurality of network policies that implement the user intent statement based on the plurality of network entities and the action and enforces the plurality network policies.