Use when performing cost optimization report — generate a comprehensive cloud cost optimization report by analyzing spending patterns, identifying waste, and recommending savings opportunities across AWS, GCP, or Azure. Covers idle resource detection, rightsizing, reserved instance/commitment analysis, and prioritized savings recommendations.
Generate a structured cost optimization report for {{ cloud_provider | uppercase }} covering {{ time_period | "last 30 days" }}.
Gather current spending data:
Expected output from this step:
COST BASELINE — {{ cloud_provider | uppercase }}
Period: {{ time_period }}
Total Spend: $X,XXX/month
MoM Change: +/-X%
Top Services:
1. [Service]: $X,XXX (XX%)
2. [Service]: $X,XXX (XX%)
...
For each service category, identify resources with zero or near-zero utilization:
Compute:
Storage:
Networking:
Database:
Other:
Threshold for waste reporting: ${{ cost_threshold | "50" }}/month minimum
Identify over-provisioned resources:
Compute Rightsizing:
For each compute instance with metrics:
- Average CPU over 14 days < 20% → downsize
- Average memory over 14 days < 30% → downsize
- Max CPU burst < 50% → no need for burstable exclusion
- Calculate estimated savings from downsizing
Database Rightsizing:
For each database instance:
- Average CPU < 15% → eligible for smaller instance class
- FreeableMemory average > 75% of allocated → memory over-provisioned
- IOPS average < 30% of provisioned → IOPS over-provisioned (if io1/io2)
Evaluate savings from longer-term commitments:
On-Demand vs Reserved Instance coverage
Savings Plan analysis
Commitment recommendation:
Identify workloads that can run on spot/preemptible instances:
Estimated savings: 60-80% vs on-demand pricing
Analyze network spend:
Identify unusual cost spikes:
Rank all findings by impact and implementation effort:
SAVINGS RECOMMENDATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUICK WINS (implement this week) — Low risk, immediate savings
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. [Resource]: [Description]
Monthly savings: $X,XXX | Risk: Low | Effort: Hours
Action: [specific command or step]
2. [Resource]: [Description]
Monthly savings: $XXX | Risk: Low | Effort: Minutes
Action: [specific command or step]
MEDIUM TERM (implement this month) — Some coordination needed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. Rightsizing [service]: [X] instances downsize from [type] to [type]
Monthly savings: $X,XXX | Risk: Medium | Effort: Days
Action: [specific steps with validation approach]
4. Reserved Instances: Purchase [X] RIs for [service]
Monthly savings: $X,XXX | Risk: Low | Effort: Hours (approval needed)
Action: [purchase via console/API]
STRATEGIC (this quarter) — Requires architectural changes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5. [Architectural change]: [description]
Monthly savings: $X,XXX | Risk: High | Effort: Weeks
Action: [high-level steps and considerations]
Produce a one-page summary:
COST OPTIMIZATION REPORT — {{ cloud_provider | uppercase }}
Generated: [date]
Period: {{ time_period }}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CURRENT STATE
• Monthly Spend: $X,XXX
• MoM Trend: [+/-X%]
• Top Cost Driver: [service]
SAVINGS IDENTIFIED
• Quick Wins: $X,XXX/month (implement in <1 week)
• Medium Term: $X,XXX/month (implement in <1 month)
• Strategic: $X,XXX/month (implement in <1 quarter)
• Total Potential: $XX,XXX/month (XX% reduction)
TOP 3 RECOMMENDATIONS
1. [action]: $X,XXX/month
2. [action]: $X,XXX/month
3. [action]: $X,XXX/month
NEXT STEPS
• [Owner]: [Action] by [Date]
• [Owner]: [Action] by [Date]
| Shortcut | Counter | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "We can skip some steps for this case" | Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them | Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate |
| "The user seems to already know what to do" | Complete all workflow phases with the user | The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses |
| "This is a minor case, full process is overkill" | Scale the process down, don't turn it off | Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears |
| "I'll fill in the details later" | Complete each section before moving on | Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate |
| "The template output isn't necessary" | Always produce the structured output format | Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams |
Produce a structured report with: