planifest Cost Optimization Cloud
Overview
Use this skill to produce actionable cloud cost reductions that preserve service quality and operational safety.
Scope Boundaries
- Use this skill when the task matches the trigger condition described in
description. - Do not use this skill when the primary task falls outside this skill's domain.
Inputs To Gather
- Cost breakdown by service/account/environment/tag.
- Utilization telemetry (CPU, memory, I/O, request profile, idle windows).
- Reliability and performance guardrails (SLO, latency, availability).
- Contractual/compliance constraints and migration limits.
Deliverables
- Prioritized optimization backlog with savings estimate and confidence.
- Risk-assessed rollout sequence.
- Verification plan for savings and regression detection.
- Reversal plan for harmful optimizations.
Optimization Decision Buckets
waste removal: idle resources, overprovisioned instances, orphaned storage.efficiency: rightsizing, autoscaling policy tuning, query/request optimization.pricing: reservations/savings plans, spot usage where safe.architecture: storage tiering, cache strategy, async/off-peak processing.
Quick Example
- Observation: cluster CPU < 15% for 14 days, memory < 25%.
- Action: downsize node class + adjust autoscaling floor.
- Guardrail: p95 latency and error rate must remain within pre-change bounds.
- Rollback: revert size within one deployment window if guardrail breaches.
Quality Standard
- Every recommendation includes expected savings, confidence, and risk.
- Recommendations explicitly state SLO/compliance impact.
- Rollout uses low-blast-radius sequence.
- Post-change metrics and rollback triggers are pre-defined.
Workflow
- Identify top cost drivers with workload attribution.
- Generate candidate actions by decision bucket.
- Quantify savings, risk, and implementation effort.
- Sequence actions by ROI and operational safety.
- Execute incrementally with guardrail monitoring.
- Validate realized savings and capture lessons.
Failure Conditions
- Stop when savings action violates SLO/compliance constraints.
- Stop when cost attribution confidence is too low for safe action.
- Escalate when forecast variance remains unexplained after top-driver analysis.