Azure Architecture, Bicep, and Cost Review
Azure designs, Bicep, and cost reviews with justified service picks, private networking, identity, and SLA math that hold up in prod.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
That's a complex architecture problem. You'll need to think about compute options in Azure — maybe App Service or Azure Functions depending on your workload. You'll want a database layer, probably Cosmos DB for distributed data. Storage could be blob storage or file shares. Networking is important too — you'd want a virtual network with proper segmentation. I'd recommend considering costs as well since Azure can get expensive at scale. Would you want to use containers with AKS, or keep it simpler? How many services are you planning? Let me know more details and I can help sketch something out.
SKILL ACTIVATED: Azure Cloud Architect Chaining with: Design System Assembler, Senior Prompt Engineer ARCHITECTURE DESIGN INITIATED DETECTED REQUIREMENTS: Workload: Microservices platform with asynchronous processing Scale target: Handle 1M+ daily requests Geo-redundancy: Multi-region deployment PROPOSED STACK: Compute: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with 3-node minimum Database: Cosmos DB (multi-region, eventual consistency) Messaging: Azure Service Bus for async workflows Storage: Blob Storage with lifecycle policies Caching: Azure Cache for Redis Monitoring: Application Insights + Log Analytics Deploy: Bicep templates for IaC CI/CD: Azure DevOps pipelines COST OPTIMIZATION ANALYSIS: Estimated monthly: 8,400 (compute 4,200, database 2,100, storage 600, other 1,500) Reduction opportunity: Reserved instances could cut 20% ARM/Bicep templates generated and ready for deployment. Run with: az deployment group create --template-file infra.bicep NEXT STEPS: 1. Review proposed architecture 2. Customize resource names and regions 3. Adjust scaling policies 4. Deploy to dev environment
About this skill
Your Azure bill jumped and nobody knows why. Your private endpoint deploys but the app still resolves the public IP. Your team picked AKS for one API and now spends every Friday patching node pools. This skill designs and reviews Azure setups the way an experienced Azure architect would. It picks the smallest service that fits, wires networking and identity correctly the first time, and explains where the money goes.
What it does
- Chooses between App Service, Container Apps, AKS, and Functions plans from your workload shape and team size, with the reason and the condition that would change the pick
- Designs private networking that actually resolves: VNet integration, private endpoints, privatelink DNS zones, and NAT gateway for outbound SNAT limits
- Wires managed identities and RBAC with no stored secrets, including OIDC or workload identity federation for pipelines
- Writes and reviews Bicep: modules, .bicepparam files, naming limits, secure parameters, what-if gates, and deployment stacks
- Runs cost reviews that cover the usual top offenders: Log Analytics ingestion, idle and oversized SKUs, egress, and choosing between reservations and savings plans
- Does composite SLA and Cosmos DB partition math so your design meets the target you claimed
What you get
A right-sized answer. A quick fix gets a direct fix. A full design gets a decision summary, a component table with SKUs and rationale, network and identity layout, a cost range, risks, and a Bicep skeleton.
Best for
Startup CTOs and small platform teams building on Azure, engineers inheriting a messy subscription, and anyone preparing a design review or an Azure cost cleanup.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: azure-architecture-bicep-cost-review
description: Designs and reviews Azure architectures, Bicep templates, pipelines, and bills. It picks the smallest service that fits, designs private networking and managed identity that work on first deploy, checks SLA and Cosmos DB math, and ranks cost fixes by dollars saved. Use when the user says "design our Azure architecture", "review this Bicep", "why is our Azure bill so high", "AKS or Container Apps?", "my private endpoint still resolves the public IP", "our App Service keeps running out of outbound connections", "set up an Azure DevOps pipeline for Bicep", or "we're migrating to Azure, where do we start".
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