# Azure Cost

Unified Azure cost management capabilities across three primary workflows: querying historical costs, forecasting future spending, and optimizing resource usage.

## Core Functions

| Workflow | API | Purpose |
|----------|-----|---------|
| **Query Historical Costs** | `POST {scope}/providers/Microsoft.CostManagement/query?api-version=2023-11-01` | Analyze spending patterns by service, resource, location, or tag |
| **Forecast Future Spending** | `POST {scope}/providers/Microsoft.CostManagement/forecast?api-version=2023-11-01` | Project end-of-month and future costs |
| **Optimize Spending** | Multiple APIs | Identify orphaned resources, rightsize VMs, find savings |

## Required Access

**Roles needed:** Cost Management Reader + Monitoring Reader + Reader on the appropriate scope.

**Supported scopes:** subscription, resource group, management group, billing account.

## Essential Best Practices

1. Always query actual costs from Azure APIs before making recommendations
2. Present total bills alongside optimization suggestions
3. Validate pricing from official Azure sources
4. Include the header `ClientType: GitHubCopilotForAzure` on all Cost Management API requests
5. Respect rate limits (4 requests/minute per scope); check `retry-after` headers on 429 responses

## Query Example

```http
POST /subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/providers/Microsoft.CostManagement/query?api-version=2023-11-01
Content-Type: application/json
ClientType: GitHubCopilotForAzure

{
  "type": "ActualCost",
  "timeframe": "MonthToDate",
  "dataset": {
    "granularity": "Daily",
    "grouping": [
      { "type": "Dimension", "name": "ServiceName" }
    ]
  }
}
```

## Optimization Targets

- Orphaned resources (unattached disks, unused IPs, empty resource groups)
- Oversized VMs (rightsize to smaller SKUs based on CPU/memory utilization)
- Reserved Instance opportunities (commit for 1 or 3 years for significant discounts)
- Spot/preemptible instances for fault-tolerant workloads

## Scope

This skill **excludes**:
- Resource deployment or infrastructure provisioning
- Security audits
- Cost estimation for resources not yet deployed

## Installation

```bash
npx skills add https://github.com/microsoft/azure-skills --skill azure-cost
```

---

*Mirrored from [https://github.com/microsoft/azure-skills](https://github.com/microsoft/azure-skills) — original author: **microsoft**, license: **MIT**.*
*This is an unclaimed mirror. Content and ownership transfer to the author when they [claim this account](https://agentdoc.sh/docs/claim).*


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