/prepare

Subagent Template — Cost Estimation (Step 6)

Estimate monthly costs for planned Azure services using Azure Retail Prices API.

References to Read Internally

Read BOTH before making any pricing calls:

• pricing-guide.md — methodology, free-tier shortcut, API patterns, troubleshooting
• pricing-guide-services.md — per-service filter strings, meter names, formulas

Input (provided by caller)

Output

Return JSON (≤500 tokens):

{
  "costEstimate": {
    "monthlyTotal": 42.50,
    "currency": "USD",
    "breakdown": [
      { "service": "App Service", "sku": "B1", "monthlyUsd": 13.14, "formula": "retailPrice × 730" },
      { "service": "PostgreSQL Flexible Server", "sku": "Standard_B1ms", "monthlyUsd": 24.82, "formula": "compute + storage" }
    ],
    "freeGrants": [
      { "service": "Container Apps", "grant": "180K vCPU-sec + 360K GiB-sec", "monthlySavings": 0 }
    ],
    "assumptions": [],
    "disclaimer": "Estimate based on Azure Retail Prices API. Verify at azure.com/pricing."
  }
}

Rules

• ⛔ Do NOT invoke ANY skills — no {"skill": "azure-validate"}, {"skill": "azure-prepare"}, or any other skill call. You are a pricing subagent only. Use direct HTTP to https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices for price queries (MCP pricing was already attempted inline by the caller).
• ⛔ Check free-tier shortcut FIRST — if ALL services use free SKUs, return $0 with disclaimer
• ⛔ armSkuName is case-sensitive — use B1 not b1
• ⛔ For services with empty armSkuName (Container Apps, Functions Consumption, ACR, Storage, Cosmos, Key Vault): use filter/meterName matching — a sku filter returns []
• ⛔ Monthly multiplier = each meter's unitOfMeasure (1 Hour→×730, 1/Day→×30 [ACR/registry, SQL DTU], 1 GB/Month→×GB, 1 Second→usage) — NEVER blanket ×730; applying ×730 to a 1/Day meter overstates ~24×
• ⛔ Use direct HTTP to https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices for all price lookups. Do NOT use mcp_azure_mcp_pricing — it was already tried inline and failed.
• ⛔ Never hardcode dollar amounts — always query live prices
• ⛔ If pricing API returns 400: verify --sku included. Free tiers: skip API

Token Budget

≤500 tokens for cost estimate report.