optimizing-cloud-costs

Execute use when you need to work with cloud cost optimization. This skill provides cost analysis and optimization with comprehensive guidance and automation. Trigger with phrases like "optimize costs", "analyze spending", or "reduce costs".

Quality

37%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

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Optimizing Cloud Costs

Overview

Analyze cloud spending across AWS, GCP, and Azure to identify waste, recommend rightsizing, and generate cost-saving configurations. Covers reserved instances, spot/preemptible workloads, storage tiering, idle resource cleanup, and budget alerting using cloud-native cost management APIs.

Prerequisites

Cloud provider CLI authenticated with billing/cost-explorer read access
AWS: ce:GetCostAndUsage, ec2:DescribeInstances, cloudwatch:GetMetricData permissions
GCP: Billing Account Viewer and Compute Viewer roles
Azure: Cost Management Reader role
Access to current infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation) for rightsizing changes
At least 30 days of billing data for meaningful analysis

Instructions

Pull current cost data using cloud cost APIs (aws ce get-cost-and-usage, gcloud billing budgets list)
Identify the top 10 cost drivers by service, region, and resource tag
Detect idle resources: instances with < 5% average CPU over 14 days, unattached EBS volumes, unused Elastic IPs, orphaned snapshots
Recommend rightsizing: compare instance utilization against available instance types and suggest downsizing
Evaluate reserved instance or savings plan coverage against on-demand spend; recommend commitments for steady-state workloads
Identify spot/preemptible candidates: stateless, fault-tolerant workloads (batch jobs, CI runners, dev environments)
Review storage costs: recommend S3 Intelligent-Tiering, lifecycle policies for infrequent access, or Glacier for archives
Generate Terraform/IaC changes to implement approved optimizations
Set up budget alerts with thresholds at 50%, 80%, and 100% of monthly budget
Create a cost optimization report summarizing findings, savings estimates, and implementation priority

Output

Cost analysis report with per-service breakdown and savings recommendations
Terraform/CloudFormation changes for rightsizing and reserved instance purchases
S3 lifecycle policy configurations for storage tiering
Budget alert configurations (CloudWatch, GCP Budget, Azure Cost Alerts)
Cleanup scripts for idle resources (with dry-run mode for safety)

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Solution
`Access Denied on Cost Explorer API`	Missing `ce:*` IAM permissions	Attach the `AWSBillingReadOnlyAccess` managed policy to the IAM user/role
`No billing data available`	Account is too new or cost export not enabled	Enable Cost Explorer (takes 24h to populate) or set up CUR (Cost and Usage Report)
`Rightsizing recommendation breaks workload`	Instance too small for peak load	Base sizing on P95 utilization, not average; keep a 20% headroom buffer
`Spot instance terminated mid-job`	Spot capacity reclaimed by provider	Use spot fleet with diversified instance types and implement checkpointing
`Budget alert not firing`	SNS topic or notification channel misconfigured	Verify SNS subscription is confirmed and test with a low threshold

Examples

"Analyze AWS costs for the last 3 months, identify the top waste areas, and generate a cleanup script for unattached EBS volumes and unused Elastic IPs."
"Compare on-demand EC2 spend against Savings Plans pricing and recommend 1-year commitments for steady-state workloads."
"Create S3 lifecycle policies to move objects older than 90 days to Glacier and delete after 365 days across all buckets tagged env:production."

Resources

AWS Cost Explorer: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-what-is.html
GCP Cost Management: https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/budgets
Azure Cost Management: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/
FinOps Foundation: https://www.finops.org/framework/

Repository: jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills
Commit: 3a2d27d

Last updated: 1 day ago
Created: 1 day ago

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