# Budget Setup

> Create a budget with sensible default thresholds, contact emails, and an optional action group. WHEN: "create budget", "setup budget", "need a budget", "no budgets", "budget recommendations". INVOKES: list_budgets, query_costs, forecast_costs, create_budget

- Skill: `azure-samples/budget-setup` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add azure-samples/budget-setup`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/azure-samples/budget-setup/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Finance & Business
- License: MIT
- Author: Azure-Samples (https://skillmd.com/u/azure-samples)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/azure-samples/budget-setup

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# Budget Setup

Help the user create a budget that reflects expected business demand — not just trailing spend — with a default tiered alert model that fits Azure's notification limits.

## Step 1: Check Existing Budgets

Call `list_budgets` on the scope. If a budget already exists, surface it and ask whether the user wants to update it or add a new one. If the existing budget amount is far below current spend (e.g., $1,000 limit on $4,500 actual), flag it as stale and ask whether the workload grew intentionally.

## Step 2: Build a Spend Baseline

Call `query_costs` with timeframe=TheLastMonth and `forecast_costs` on the same scope. Present:

- **Last month actual** — $X
- **Current month forecast** — $Y
- **Trend** — growing / stable / declining

`forecast_costs` returns one row per day, each tagged `CostStatus` `Actual` or `Forecast`, and the same date can appear as both. To get $Y, take one value per date — the `Actual` if present, otherwise the `Forecast` — and sum `PreTaxCost`.

Treat these as a *starting point* for the recommendation, not the budget amount itself.

## Step 3: Confirm Business Context

Ask the user two short questions:

> 1. **Firm spending limit or tracking budget?** A firm limit is an amount they intend not to exceed; tracking is visibility only. Either way, an Azure budget only sends alerts — it never stops, throttles, or disables resources when exceeded.
> 2. **Any planned changes this quarter?** (new deployments, migrations, reservations, seasonal peaks)

Use the answers to adjust the recommendation:

- No planned changes → base the amount on the forecast, optionally adding a small buffer for organic growth (e.g., ~10%); confirm the buffer with the user rather than applying it silently.
- Planned changes → ask for the rough expected delta and add it to the baseline.
- Firm limit → set the amount at that limit and pick lower thresholds for earlier action.

## Step 4: Recommend Scope & Thresholds

**Scope (in priority order):**

1. **Subscription** — the default choice for environment-level control.
2. **Resource group** — for a high-spend workload inside a shared subscription.

`create_budget` creates budgets at subscription and resource-group scope only. Azure also supports budgets at management-group, department, enrollment-account, and billing-account scope for org-wide governance, but those are created in the Azure portal — recommend a subscription or resource-group budget here, and point the user to the portal if they need a broader scope.

**Default threshold model** (4 notifications, within Azure's 5-per-budget limit):

| Threshold | Type | Purpose |
|-----------|------|---------|
| 80% | Actual | Early warning — review trajectory |
| 100% | Actual | At limit — act now |
| 80% | Forecasted | Projected to overshoot soon — defer non-critical spend |
| 100% | Forecasted | Projected to exceed limit — escalate |

Present these as a starting point and let the user adjust before creating. Some teams prefer tighter thresholds (e.g., 50/80/100 actual); others wider.

## Step 5: Create the Budget

Confirm the proposal with the user, including the notification contacts:

> Recommended budget:
>
> - **Scope:** [subscription / RG]
> - **Amount:** $X/month (based on $Y forecast + buffer / planned changes)
> - **Thresholds:** 80% / 100% actual + 80% / 100% forecasted
> - **Contacts:** [emails the user provides]
> - **Action group** *(optional)*: [Action Group resource ID, if the user has one]
>
> Create it?

On confirmation, call `create_budget`. When you pass `notifications`, the top-level `contactEmails` param is ignored, so embed `contactEmails` inside every notification object — each notification needs at least one contact email or the call fails. `create_budget` won't overwrite an existing budget: if one of the same name already exists at the scope, the call is refused, so pick a different name (or have the user delete the existing budget first). Then call `list_budgets` to verify and show the created budget.

## Notes

> Budgets are a core Cost Management guardrail — but only when they reflect business reality and have the right people on the notification list. A budget without an accountable owner is just a number.