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Cost Analysis

MicrosoftOfficialCreated by Microsoft

  • Skill
  • Research and analysis
  • Cloud and DevOps
  • MIT
  • No issues found
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From the author

Analyze actual Azure spend, bill changes, and AKS or AI costs. WHEN: "Azure cost breakdown", "most expensive resources", "why did my bill increase", "cost spike", "unexpected charge", "Cosmos DB charges", "Foundry model costs", "AKS cluster cost", "namespace cost", "enable AKS cost analysis", "idle AKS capacity". DO NOT USE FOR: forecasts, pricing estimates, rightsizing, commitments, or budgets.
— the description by Microsoft

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

The cost-analysis skill provides a structured approach to investigating historical Azure billing data. It focuses on identifying cost drivers, explaining anomalies, and breaking down expenditures for specific services like Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and AI models. The skill emphasizes using official billing dimensions and resource graphs to provide evidence-based reports while strictly avoiding speculative tasks like forecasting, pricing estimates, or rightsizing recommendations.

What it does

  • Queries historical Azure spend by scope, period, and currency.
  • Investigates cost spikes and unexpected charges using billing dimensions.
  • Analyzes AKS cluster and namespace cost allocation.
  • Breaks down AI service and model-related costs.
  • Correlates billing data with operational evidence from Resource Graph.
  • Distinguishes between measured costs and inferred causes.

When to use it

  • When you need a breakdown of your current Azure bill.
  • When investigating a sudden cost spike or unexpected charge.
  • When analyzing the cost distribution across AKS namespaces.
  • When identifying the most expensive resources in your subscription.
  • When correlating AI service spend with specific resource usage.

Advantages

  • Provides evidence-based analysis using official billing data.
  • Maintains clear separation between measured costs and inferred contributors.
  • Standardizes the investigation process for AKS and AI service costs.
  • Prevents speculative errors by excluding forecasting and rightsizing.

Usage examples

“Why did my Azure bill increase last month?”
The agent will query historical cost data for the specified period, identify the primary service or resource contributors to the increase, and report the findings.
“Show me the cost breakdown for my AKS namespaces.”
The agent will use the AKS cost analysis workflow to retrieve and present the cost allocation per namespace, including idle or unallocated charges.
“What are the most expensive resources in my subscription?”
The agent will perform a cost query grouped by resource to identify and list the top contributors to your current Azure spend.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/microsoft/cost-analysis/download

  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip cost-analysis.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Microsoft

Azure Cost Analysis

Quick Reference

IntentWorkflowPrimary tools
Query historical spendCost queryquery_costs
Explain a spikeCost investigationquery_costs, Resource Graph
Analyze AKS spendAKS cost analysisquery_aks_costs, Resource Graph
Analyze AI service spendAI cost analysisquery_costs

When to Use This Skill

Use for spend, anomalies, and AKS or AI allocation.

MCP Tools

Use cost tools and Resource Graph first. If an operation is unavailable, follow fallback and safety.

Workflow

  1. Confirm scope, period, currency, and breakdown.

  2. Load only the matching workflow above.

  3. Never transform MCP results in a shell or interpreter; request tool-side totals, grouping, sorting, or bounded follow-up queries.

  4. Respect row limits and label incomplete data.

  5. Separate measured cost from inferred causes and recommendations.

Error Handling

ErrorAction
Access deniedName the required scope and role.
Empty resultDistinguish no data from unavailable data.
Multiple currenciesReport each currency separately.
Server errorRetry once; then stop with the trace ID.

Files

references/cost-query/guardrails.md

Cost Query Guardrails

These limits match the Azure Resource Manager MCP query_costs implementation.

RuleLimit
Historical lookbackRolling 92 days
Custom datesfrom and to required together in YYYY-MM-DD
Historical end dateCannot be in the future
GroupingMaximum five dimensions
RowsDefault 100; top maximum 5000
FiltersOne dimension with exact In values
TagsGrouping and filtering unsupported
Fan-outAsk the user to narrow requests spanning more than about 10 subscriptions

Resource- and meter-level dimensions are limited to subscription and resource-group scopes. Other whitelisted dimensions can be attempted at broader scopes, but upstream agreement and scope rules may still reject them.

Query efficiency

  • Prefer one bounded query that answers the question instead of splitting the same scope and period across multiple calls.

  • Filter early and request only the grouping dimensions needed for the answer.

  • Use cost-descending sorting with an appropriate top for rankings.

  • Shorten the time range or reduce grouping dimensions for expensive resource, meter, or high-cardinality queries.

  • For subscriptions under the same billing account, prefer one supported billing-account query over separate per-subscription calls.

The tool rejects invalid dates, unsupported dimensions, incomplete from/to or filter pairs, and invalid row limits. It does not silently swap, truncate, or shift requested dates.

The tool exposes no continuation parameter. If 5000 rows are insufficient, narrow the request and disclose that the result is partial. Do not call an upstream nextLink directly.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Security

No issues found by our static scan· No issues found

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Created by
Microsoft
Publisher
Microsoft (Official)
Source
microsoft/skills · .github/plugins/azure-cost/skills/cost-analysis · commit 0696600
Licence
MIT License (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from .github/plugins/azure-cost/LICENSE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
Synced

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft or Microsoft.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download cost-analysis.zip