cost-estimation
Forecast Azure spend and price planned resources or workloads. WHEN: "forecast Azure spending", "project next month cost", "compare forecast to my planning target", "how much will Azure cost", "estimate VM cost", "compare storage tiers", "compare Azure regions", "retail price", "EA rate card", "negotiated pricesheet". DO NOT USE FOR: configured budget health or alerts, bill analysis, cost spikes, rightsizing, or commitments.
71
89%
Does it follow best practices?
Run evals on this skill
Adds up to 20 points to the overall score
Passed
No findings from the security scan
The canonical home for this skill is cost-estimation in microsoft/GitHub-Copilot-for-Azure
Azure Cost Estimation
Quick Reference
| Intent | Workflow | Primary tools |
|---|---|---|
| Forecast existing spend | Cost forecast | forecast_costs |
| Price planned resources | Pricing estimate | Pricing tools |
When to Use This Skill
Use for forecasts, pricing, and planning targets.
MCP Tools
| Tool | Use |
|---|---|
forecast_costs | Forecast a scope. |
get_retail_prices | Get public prices. |
start_pricesheet_download, get_pricesheet_status | Get Enterprise Agreement (EA) or Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) prices. |
Fallback: API mappings.
Workflow
- Distinguish forecasts from hypothetical pricing.
- Confirm scope, assumptions, period, region, OS, and currency.
- Load the matching workflow and label every value type.
- Never transform MCP results in a shell or interpreter; request tool-side filtering or bounded follow-up queries.
Error Handling
| Error | Action |
|---|---|
| Ambiguous meter | Ask for OS, term, tier, or usage. |
| Forecast unavailable | Explain the history requirement. |
| Pricesheet pending | Honor the returned polling interval. |
| Multiple currencies | Never combine currencies. |
| Server error | Retry once; then report the trace ID. |
- Repository
- microsoft/azure-skills
- Commit
bff9370
- Last updated
- First committed
Canonical home
since Sep 25, 2026
Also appears in
since Sep 26, 2026
Is this your skill?
If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.