Skills

Skill 4 of 47

Cost Optimization

Optimize existing Azure resources and analyze Reservations or Savings Plans.

1 minute · 144 words · 6 sections

Install

$ npx skills add microsoft/azure-skills --skill cost-optimization

$ npx skills add microsoft/azure-skills

» /plugin marketplace add microsoft/azure-skills

The first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.

Azure Cost Optimization

Quick Reference

Intent	Workflow	Primary tools
Reduce waste or rightsize	Optimization (opens in a new tab)	Cost and Resource Graph tools
Review commitments	Commitments (opens in a new tab)	`list_benefit_utilization`, `list_reservation_transactions`, `get_benefit_recommendations`

When to Use This Skill

Use for waste, rightsizing, and commitments.

MCP Tools

Use cost and Resource Graph tools for optimization and benefit tools for commitments. Validate queries. Fallback: API mappings (opens in a new tab).

Workflow

Confirm scope, period, currency, and commitment intent.
Load only the matching workflow above.
Never transform MCP results in a shell or interpreter; request validated server-side projection, aggregation, or bounded follow-up queries.
Separate measured cost, reported savings, and qualitative opportunities.
Recommend changes only; do not delete, resize, purchase, or deploy resources.

Error Handling

Error	Action
Access denied	Name the scope and permission.
Multiple currencies	Group and report each currency separately.
Missing evidence	State the gap; do not invent values.
Server error	Retry once; then report the trace ID.

About this skill

Trigger

Optimize existing Azure resources and analyze Reservations or Savings Plans. WHEN: "optimize Azure costs", "reduce cloud spending", "rightsize resources", "find idle resources", "orphaned disk", "deleted VM still charged", "public IP still charging", "reservation utilization", "Savings Plan coverage", "commitment recommendation", "why is pay-as-you-go still charged". DO NOT USE FOR: cost spikes, forecasts, pricing estimates, budgets, or governance.

The verbatim description from this skill’s front matter — the string an agent matches on to decide whether to load it.

Licence: MIT
Source: .github/plugins/azure-cost/skills/cost-optimization/SKILL.md

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How this issue was made

Source

github.com/microsoft/azure-skills, branch main, last pushed 23 September 2026.

Licence

MIT — the text of every skill is reproduced unmodified, frontmatter included, under the upstream licence.

Discovery

47 skills found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 10 distinct layouts observed: .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-app-onboard/*/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.

Duplicates collapsed

37 mirror copies folded into their canonical skill — republished for GitHub. Copies match on content hash and on position once a leading per-agent prefix is stripped, because the same skill is routinely shipped under a dozen agent directories with a dozen different hashes.

Issue colours

Resolved from a curated brand profile — hue 251°, chroma 0.167. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to this skill so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Shifted “6 headings” from h1 to h2 so the skill title is the only h1.

Spec compliance

6 editorial notes across 3 of 47 skills. They are printed in the margin of each skill rather than as errors here.

Deploy — 2 notes
Prepare — 2 notes
Scaffold — 2 notes

Images

Images inside a skill come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Marketplace

A plugin manifest is published at .claude-plugin/marketplace.json by Microsoft, declaring 5 plugins. It is read for editorial metadata only — never as the skill index, which is always the repository tree.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /microsoft/azure-skills.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.

Azure Cost Optimization

Quick Reference

Intent	Workflow	Primary tools
Reduce waste or rightsize	Optimization (opens in a new tab)	Cost and Resource Graph tools
Review commitments	Commitments (opens in a new tab)	`list_benefit_utilization`, `list_reservation_transactions`, `get_benefit_recommendations`

Confirm scope, period, currency, and commitment intent.
Load only the matching workflow above.
Never transform MCP results in a shell or interpreter; request validated server-side projection, aggregation, or bounded follow-up queries.
Separate measured cost, reported savings, and qualitative opportunities.
Recommend changes only; do not delete, resize, purchase, or deploy resources.

Error Handling

Error	Action
Access denied	Name the scope and permission.
Multiple currencies	Group and report each currency separately.
Missing evidence	State the gap; do not invent values.
Server error	Retry once; then report the trace ID.

Cost Optimization

Azure Cost Optimization

Quick Reference

When to Use This Skill

MCP Tools

Workflow

Error Handling

About this skill

Trigger

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Cost Optimization

Azure Cost Optimization

Quick Reference

When to Use This Skill

MCP Tools

Workflow

Error Handling

Appendix 4.1–4.8

ReferencesMarkdown · 8 files

About this skill

Trigger

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Appendix 4.1–4.8

ReferencesMarkdown · 8 files