azure-cost-management

name	azure-cost-management
description	This skill should be used when the user asks about "Azure Advisor", "cost recommendations", "savings plans", "reservations", "reserved instances", "RI", "Azure budgets", "cost exports", "anomaly alerts", "MACC", "Azure credits", "Azure Prepayment", "commitment discounts", "cost optimization", "reservations vs savings plans", "which commitment discount", or any Azure Cost Management operations.
license	MIT
compatibility	Requires Azure CLI authentication (az login) and appropriate RBAC permissions for Cost Management APIs.
metadata	{"author":"microsoft","version":"1.0"}

Azure Cost Management

Azure Cost Management and optimization skills. Provides recommendations, budget management, exports, alerts, and commitment tracking capabilities.

Domain Knowledge

Domain	Purpose	Key Operations
azure-advisor	Cost recommendations	Query, suppress, manage recommendations
azure-savings-plans	Savings plan analysis	Benefit recommendations, coverage, ROI
azure-budgets	Budget management	Create budgets, notifications, action groups
azure-cost-exports	Scheduled exports	FOCUS exports, backfill, troubleshooting
azure-anomaly-alerts	Cost anomaly detection	Bulk alert deployment across subscriptions
azure-reservations	Reserved instance analysis	Reservation recommendations, utilization, coverage, exchange/return
azure-commitment-discount-decision	Commitment discount framework	Reservations vs savings plans decision criteria, hybrid strategy
azure-credits	Credit tracking	Azure Prepayment balance, expiration risk
azure-macc	MACC commitment tracking	Balance, decrements, milestone tracking

Cost Optimization

Azure Advisor Recommendations

az advisor recommendation list --category Cost --output table

Suppression: Up to 90-day TTL, bulk suppression via management groups.

For detailed documentation: references/azure-advisor.md

Savings plans and reservations

Benefit Recommendations API for:

• Savings plan purchase recommendations (up to 65% savings)
• Reservation recommendations (up to 72% savings)
• Coverage analysis and utilization monitoring
• Decision framework: when to use which commitment type

For detailed documentation:

• references/azure-savings-plans.md — savings plan analysis and script
• references/azure-reservations.md — reserved instance analysis
• references/azure-commitment-discount-decision.md — decision framework

Budget & Alerts

Budgets

• Up to 5 notifications per budget
• Action Groups at Subscription/Resource Group scope only
• Threshold types: Actual, Forecasted

az consumption budget list --output table

For detailed documentation: references/azure-budgets.md

Anomaly Alerts

Enterprise-scale deployment with pagination for large environments.

For detailed documentation: references/azure-anomaly-alerts.md

Cost Exports

FOCUS format exports to storage accounts with backfill support.

For detailed documentation: references/azure-cost-exports.md

Commitment Tracking

Azure Credits (Prepayment)

Track EA/MCA credit balances, expiration dates, consumption history.

For detailed documentation: references/azure-credits.md

MACC (Azure Consumption Commitment)

Track MACC balance, decrements, milestone progress, eligible spend.

For detailed documentation: references/azure-macc.md

Reference documentation

• Optimization: references/azure-advisor.md, references/azure-savings-plans.md, references/azure-reservations.md
• Decision framework: references/azure-commitment-discount-decision.md
• Budgets and alerts: references/azure-budgets.md, references/azure-anomaly-alerts.md, references/azure-cost-exports.md
• Commitments: references/azure-credits.md, references/azure-macc.md Load the appropriate reference file when detailed workflows, API examples, or troubleshooting are needed.