54 skills · 151 min
Skills
Skill 8 of 54
Analyze Azure Advisor Cost/IdleResources findings and prevalidate deletion safety, including Service Groups.
1 minute · 241 words · 4 sections
Install
npx skills add microsoft/azure-skills --skill azure-advisor-cost-optimizationnpx skills add microsoft/azure-skills/plugin marketplace add microsoft/azure-skillsThe first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.
Use existing Advisor tools only with category=Cost and sub-category=IdleResources.
Never substitute billing, inventory or runtime KQL. Preserve selected scope, type and tenant;
pass supplied identities unchanged.
Use only returned structured retail savings; MCP owns calculations. Never annualize,
reconstruct amounts from dates, or fall back to legacy annualSavingsAmount/savingsAmount
or raw pricing. Cost is accumulated Advisor cost, not monthly spend or yearly savings.
Completed reports use Realized savings.
Every monetary answer or proposal visibly shows Currency and Pricing basis: <basis>
from the calculated measure or its documented source. Missing amounts are Unavailable,
not zero; numeric zero stays zero. Preserve a known basis even when amounts are missing.
Potential savings depend on validating and deleting eligible resources. Estimates do not
establish inactivity or safe deletion and never authorize remediation.
Before each flow, read its matching references below, including when using supplied results. Before scoped calls, read Scope resolution (opens in a new tab). Reuse already loaded references. If a required file is unavailable, report it and stop the affected flow.
Use the matching scenario guidance; Reference index (opens in a new tab).
| Flow | Required reference |
|---|---|
| Discovery and type expansion | Workflow (opens in a new tab) |
| Counts, savings field mapping and pricing-source interpretation | Output and savings (opens in a new tab) |
| Tables and selected resources | Table format (opens in a new tab) |
| Completed/historical reports | Lifecycle |
Use shared headings and column order across models, with documented scope/lifecycle variations.
Visibly show results/proposals before dependent questions; reasoning, tool output or text
inside ask_user does not count. Ask directly for missing input.
Analyze Azure Advisor Cost/IdleResources findings and prevalidate deletion safety, including Service Groups. WHEN: "find unused Azure resources", "what resources am I paying for but no longer using", "idle-resource savings", "historical idle-resource savings", "are these idle resources safe to delete". Generic Cost, other subcategories, and cross-category requests use azure-advisor.
The verbatim description from this skill’s front matter — the string an agent matches on to decide whether to load it.
main, last pushed 9 November 2026.SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 11 distinct layouts observed: .github/plugins/aks-skills/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/plugins/azure-advisor/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/plugins/azure-cost/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/plugins/azure-kusto-graph-skills/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/plugins/azure-local-skills/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/plugins/foundry-iq-skills/skills/*/SKILL.md, skills/*/SKILL.md, skills/azure-kubernetes/*/SKILL.md, skills/microsoft-foundry/*/SKILL.md, skills/microsoft-foundry/models/deploy-model/*/SKILL.md, skills/microsoft-foundry/models/*/SKILL.md.| State changes | State updates (opens in a new tab) |
| Selection/remediation handoff | Selection (opens in a new tab) |
| Explicit prevalidation/safety checks | Selection (opens in a new tab) |
| Filters/errors | Tools and recovery (opens in a new tab) |
| Routing examples | Examples (opens in a new tab) |
h1 and no skipped levels:.claude-plugin/marketplace.json by Microsoft, declaring 7 plugins. It is read for editorial metadata only — never as the skill index, which is always the repository tree./microsoft/azure-skills.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.10 files · 50 KB
Everything this skill ships beside its prose. All of it is set here, as subchapters of skill 8.
Documentation the agent loads on demand, rather than up front.