AWS Cost Operations Skill for Claude

AWS Cost & Operations

This skill provides comprehensive guidance for AWS cost optimization, monitoring, observability, and operational excellence with integrated MCP servers.

Integrated MCP Servers

This skill includes 8 MCP servers automatically configured with the plugin:

Cost Management Servers

1. AWS Billing and Cost Management MCP Server

Purpose: Real-time billing and cost management

• View current AWS spending and trends
• Analyze billing details across services
• Track budget utilization
• Monitor cost allocation tags
• Review consolidated billing for organizations

2. AWS Pricing MCP Server

Purpose: Pre-deployment cost estimation and optimization

• Estimate costs before deploying resources
• Compare pricing across regions
• Calculate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Evaluate different service options for cost efficiency
• Get current pricing information for AWS services

3. AWS Cost Explorer MCP Server

Purpose: Detailed cost analysis and reporting

• Analyze historical spending patterns
• Create custom cost reports
• Identify cost anomalies and trends
• Forecast future costs
• Analyze cost by service, region, or tag
• Generate cost optimization recommendations

Monitoring & Observability Servers

4. Amazon CloudWatch MCP Server

Purpose: Metrics, alarms, and logs analysis

• Query CloudWatch metrics and logs
• Create and manage CloudWatch alarms
• Analyze application performance metrics
• Troubleshoot operational issues
• Set up custom dashboards
• Monitor resource utilization

5. Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals MCP Server

Purpose: Application monitoring and performance insights

• Monitor application health and performance
• Analyze service-level objectives (SLOs)
• Track application dependencies
• Identify performance bottlenecks
• Monitor service map and traces

6. AWS Managed Prometheus MCP Server

Purpose: Prometheus-compatible monitoring

• Query Prometheus metrics
• Monitor containerized applications
• Analyze Kubernetes workload metrics
• Create PromQL queries
• Track custom application metrics

Audit & Security Servers

7. AWS CloudTrail MCP Server

Purpose: AWS API activity and audit analysis

• Analyze AWS API calls and user activity
• Track resource changes and modifications
• Investigate security incidents
• Audit compliance requirements
• Identify unusual access patterns
• Review who made what changes when

8. AWS Well-Architected Security Assessment Tool MCP Server

Purpose: Security assessment against Well-Architected Framework

• Assess security posture against AWS best practices
• Identify security gaps and vulnerabilities
• Get security improvement recommendations
• Review security pillar compliance
• Generate security assessment reports

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Optimizing AWS costs and reducing spending
• Estimating costs before deployment
• Monitoring application and infrastructure performance
• Setting up observability and alerting
• Analyzing spending patterns and trends
• Investigating operational issues
• Auditing AWS activity and changes
• Assessing security posture
• Implementing operational excellence

Cost Optimization Best Practices

Pre-Deployment Cost Estimation

Always estimate costs before deploying:

• Use AWS Pricing MCP to estimate resource costs
• Compare pricing across different regions
• Evaluate alternative service options
• Calculate expected monthly costs
• Plan for scaling and growth

Example workflow:

"Estimate the monthly cost of running a Lambda function with
1 million invocations, 512MB memory, 3-second duration in us-east-1"

Cost Analysis and Optimization

Regular cost reviews:

• Use Cost Explorer MCP to analyze spending trends
• Identify cost anomalies and unexpected charges
• Review costs by service, region, and environment
• Compare actual vs. budgeted costs
• Generate cost optimization recommendations

Cost optimization strategies:

• Right-size over-provisioned resources
• Use appropriate storage classes (S3, EBS)
• Implement auto-scaling for dynamic workloads
• Leverage Savings Plans and Reserved Instances
• Delete unused resources and snapshots
• Use cost allocation tags effectively

Budget Monitoring

Track spending against budgets:

• Use Billing and Cost Management MCP to monitor budgets
• Set up budget alerts for threshold breaches
• Review budget utilization regularly
• Adjust budgets based on trends
• Implement cost controls and governance

Monitoring and Observability Best Practices

CloudWatch Metrics and Alarms

Implement comprehensive monitoring:

• Use CloudWatch MCP to query metrics and logs
• Set up alarms for critical metrics:
• CPU and memory utilization
• Error rates and latency
• Queue depths and processing times
• API gateway throttling
• Lambda errors and timeouts
• Create CloudWatch dashboards for visualization
• Use log insights for troubleshooting

Example alarm scenarios:

• Lambda error rate > 1%
• EC2 CPU utilization > 80%
• API Gateway 4xx/5xx error spike
• DynamoDB throttled requests
• ECS task failures

Application Performance Monitoring

Monitor application health:

• Use CloudWatch Application Signals MCP for APM
• Track service-level objectives (SLOs)
• Monitor application dependencies
• Identify performance bottlenecks
• Set up distributed tracing

Container and Kubernetes Monitoring

For containerized workloads:

• Use AWS Managed Prometheus MCP for metrics
• Monitor container resource utilization
• Track pod and node health
• Create PromQL queries for custom metrics
• Set up alerts for container anomalies

Audit and Security Best Practices

CloudTrail Activity Analysis

Audit AWS activity:

• Use CloudTrail MCP to analyze API activity
• Track who made changes to resources
• Investigate security incidents
• Monitor for suspicious activity patterns
• Audit compliance with policies

Common audit scenarios:

• "Who deleted this S3 bucket?"
• "Show all IAM role changes in the last 24 hours"
• "List failed login attempts"
• "Find all actions by a specific user"
• "Track modifications to security groups"

Security Assessment

Regular security reviews:

• Use Well-Architected Security Assessment MCP
• Assess security posture against best practices
• Identify security gaps and vulnerabilities
• Implement recommended security improvements
• Document security compliance

Security assessment areas:

• Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Detective controls and monitoring
• Infrastructure protection
• Data protection and encryption
• Incident response preparedness

Using MCP Servers Effectively

Cost Analysis Workflow

• Pre-deployment: Use Pricing MCP to estimate costs
• Post-deployment: Use Billing MCP to track actual spending
• Analysis: Use Cost Explorer MCP for detailed cost analysis
• Optimization: Implement recommendations from Cost Explorer

Monitoring Workflow

• Setup: Configure CloudWatch metrics and alarms
• Monitor: Use CloudWatch MCP to track key metrics
• Analyze: Use Application Signals for APM insights
• Troubleshoot: Query CloudWatch Logs for issue resolution

Security Workflow

• Audit: Use CloudTrail MCP to review activity
• Assess: Use Well-Architected Security Assessment
• Remediate: Implement security recommendations
• Monitor: Track security events via CloudWatch

MCP Usage Best Practices

• Cost Awareness: Check pricing before deploying resources
• Proactive Monitoring: Set up alarms for critical metrics
• Regular Reviews: Analyze costs and performance weekly
• Audit Trails: Review CloudTrail logs for compliance
• Security First: Run security assessments regularly
• Optimize Continuously: Act on cost and performance recommendations

Operational Excellence Guidelines

Cost Optimization

• Tag Everything: Use consistent cost allocation tags
• Review Monthly: Analyze spending trends and anomalies
• Right-size: Match resources to actual usage
• Automate: Use auto-scaling and scheduling
• Monitor Budgets: Set alerts for cost overruns

Monitoring and Alerting

• Critical Metrics: Alert on business-critical metrics
• Noise Reduction: Fine-tune thresholds to reduce false positives
• Actionable Alerts: Ensure alerts have clear remediation steps
• Dashboard Visibility: Create dashboards for key stakeholders
• Log Retention: Balance cost and compliance needs

Security and Compliance

• Least Privilege: Grant minimum required permissions
• Audit Regularly: Review CloudTrail logs for anomalies
• Encrypt Data: Use encryption at rest and in transit
• Assess Continuously: Run security assessments frequently
• Incident Response: Have procedures for security events

Additional Resources

For detailed operational patterns and best practices, refer to the comprehensive reference:

File: references/operations-patterns.md

This reference includes:

• Cost optimization strategies
• Monitoring and alerting patterns
• Observability best practices
• Security and compliance guidelines
• Troubleshooting workflows

CloudWatch Alarms Reference

File: references/cloudwatch-alarms.md

Common alarm configurations for:

• Lambda functions
• EC2 instances
• RDS databases
• DynamoDB tables
• API Gateway
• ECS services
• Application Load Balancers