aws-pricing-calculator

name	aws-pricing-calculator
description	Generate shareable AWS Pricing Calculator URLs from architecture descriptions, blog posts, or solution documents. Discovers service schemas, looks up real pricing, builds estimate JSON, and POSTs to the Save API.
triggers	["AWS cost estimate","pricing calculator","calculator URL","cost this architecture","estimate for blog","AWS pricing","calculate AWS costs"]

AWS Pricing Calculator Skill

Generate a shareable AWS Pricing Calculator URL from any architecture description.

Trigger Terms

Phrase	Example
AWS cost estimate	"Give me an AWS cost estimate for this architecture"
pricing calculator	"Create a pricing calculator for this blog post"
calculator URL	"Generate a calculator URL for these services"
cost this architecture	"Cost this architecture on AWS"
estimate for blog	"Create an estimate for this AWS blog post"

Workflow

Follow these 6 steps in order:

Step 1: Extract Services

Read the architecture document, blog post, or user description. Identify:

• Each AWS service used
• Instance types, storage sizes, throughput, node counts
• Region (default: us-east-1)
• Grouping (environments, tiers, components)

Step 2: Discover Schemas

For each service, run the discovery script to get the current schema:

python ~/.claude/skills/aws-pricing-calculator/scripts/calc_discover.py <serviceCode1> <serviceCode2> ...

This fetches the live service definition from CloudFront and extracts all configurable calculationComponents with their IDs, types, options, and defaults.

Check references/service_formats.md first — if the service has a proven format there, use it directly instead of discovering from scratch.

Step 3: Look Up Pricing

Use the AWS Pricing API MCP tool (get_pricing) to get current prices:

get_pricing(serviceCode, region, filters)

Calculate monthly costs: unit_price * quantity * hours_per_month (730 hrs).

Step 4: Build Estimate

Create a JSON spec file defining groups and services, then build:

python ~/.claude/skills/aws-pricing-calculator/scripts/calc_build.py spec.json -o estimate.json

Or use the Python API directly to build the estimate dict programmatically.

Step 5: Save to API

Upload the estimate to get a shareable URL:

python ~/.claude/skills/aws-pricing-calculator/scripts/calc_save.py estimate.json

Step 6: Return Results

Provide the user with:

1. The calculator URL
2. A cost summary table (service, monthly, annual)
3. Total monthly and annual costs

Tools

Script	Purpose
scripts/calc_utils.py	Shared: curl helpers, UUID, constants, region map
scripts/calc_discover.py	Fetch service defs, extract configurable components
scripts/calc_build.py	Build estimate JSON from a spec file
scripts/calc_save.py	POST to Save API, return shareable URL

Critical Rules

1. calculationComponents must NOT be empty — populate all required fields or the calculator shows $0.00
2. serviceCost.monthly must be pre-calculated — the calculator displays this value as-is on load; it does not recalculate
3. estimateFor must match the template ID from the service definition (e.g., "template" for EC2, "appStream2" for AppStream)
4. version must match the current service definition version — always fetch fresh via calc_discover.py
5. Use curl subprocess, not Python requests — Python 3.14 has SSL issues with CloudFront CDN endpoints
6. Use AWS Pricing API MCP (get_pricing) for real price lookups — never hardcode prices
7. Check references/service_formats.md for known working formats before building from scratch

References

File	Contents
references/api_endpoints.md	CloudFront URLs, Save API request/response format
references/service_formats.md	Proven calculationComponents for 9+ services
references/troubleshooting.md	Common issues: $0 costs, read-only warnings, SSL errors

Quick Start Examples

From a blog post URL

User: "Create an AWS pricing calculator for this blog post: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/..."

1. Fetch and read the blog post
2. Extract architecture: services, instance types, storage, throughput
3. Run through Steps 2-6

From a solution document

User: "Cost this architecture: 3 EC2 m5.xlarge Windows, 1 RDS Oracle db.m5.xlarge, EBS io1 1400GB"

1. Parse the service specs from the description
2. Discover schemas for ec2Enhancement, amazonRdsForOracle, amazonElasticBlockStore
3. Look up pricing, build estimate, save, return URL

From a CSV/spreadsheet

User: "Build a calculator estimate from this CSV with our environment sizing"

1. Read the CSV to extract services per environment
2. Map to service codes and calculationComponents
3. Build grouped estimate, save, return URL