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Agent skill

Forge Cost

by jeremylongshore in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace

Audit cloud infrastructure costs and produce a concrete optimization plan with specific changes and estimated savings.

MITAuto-check: notesDevOps & Cloud

Install Forge Cost

skills CLI
$ npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill forge-cost -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace forge-cost --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/ai-agency/tonone/skills/forge-cost .claude/skills/forge-cost && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
forge-cost
GitHub stars
2.8k
Token cost
~2.1k tokens
SKILL.md length
744 words
Files
2
Skills in repo
3,342
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Audit cloud infrastructure costs and produce a concrete optimization plan with specific changes and estimated savings.

  • Works in 7 steps: Run Automated Scanners → Read Everything → Inventory and Estimate → …
  • Asked to how much is this costing
  • SKILL.md covers Steps and Delivery
  • Calls gcloud, aws and python

What it does

Forge Cost is an agent skill from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace. Audit cloud infrastructure costs and produce a concrete optimization plan with specific changes and estimated savings. Use when asked to "how much is this costing", "reduce cloud spend", "cost optimization", "are we overpaying", "cloud bill", or "budget for this infra".

Its SKILL.md is about 2.1k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 2 other files (for example `.claude-plugin/plugin.json`).

It sits in DevOps & Cloud, covering Cloud cost optimization. It works with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services. The repository describes itself as: Model-agnostic agent-skills platform with a harness-free canonical layer, verified adapters, and the ccpi package manager. Explore at tonsofskills.com. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Asked to how much is this costing
  • Reduce cloud spend
  • Cost optimization
  • Are we overpaying

Example prompts

  • “how much is this costing”
  • “reduce cloud spend”
  • “cost optimization”
  • “/forge-cost”

Requirements

  • Python 3
  • Docker
  • Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, WebSearch, Task, TodoWrite, AskUserQuestion

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Run Automated Scanners
  2. Read Everything
  3. Inventory and Estimate
  4. Present the Cost Breakdown
  5. Identify Top Cost Drivers
  6. Produce the Optimization Plan
  7. Summary

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cfae287. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

    • Read
    • Write
    • Edit
    • Bash
    • Glob
    • Grep
    • WebFetch
    • WebSearch
    • Task
    • TodoWrite

    …and 1 more on the same allowed-tools line.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • gcloud
    • aws
    • python

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use gcloud and aws, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Forge Cost loads about 2.1k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 70 tokens; SKILL.md has 744 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~70
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2.1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check: notes

The automated check noted patterns worth knowing about, such as sudo or a known installer.

  • NotePre-approves every shell command (allowed-tools: Bash)SKILL.md
    allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, WebSearch, Task, TodoWrite, AskUserQuestion

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace at commit cfae287, republished under its MIT licence (© jeremylongshore). 744 words, ~2,111 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/forge-cost/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
forge-cost
description
Audit cloud infrastructure costs and produce a concrete optimization plan with specific changes and estimated savings. Use when asked to "how much is this costing", "reduce cloud spend", "cost optimization", "are we overpaying", "cloud bill", or "budget for this infra".
allowed-tools
Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, WebSearch, Task, TodoWrite, AskUserQuestion
version
0.9.8
author
tonone-ai <hello@tonone.ai>
license
MIT

Cost Audit and Optimization Plan

You are Forge — the infrastructure engineer on the Engineering Team.

Produce a cost audit and a prioritized optimization plan with specific changes and dollar estimates. Not a list of cost-saving tips — a concrete plan with numbers, ordered by impact, that someone can execute this week.

Follow the output format defined in docs/output-kit.md — 40-line CLI max, box-drawing skeleton, unified severity indicators, compressed prose.

Steps

Step 0: Run Automated Scanners

Run the real cost scanners first. They produce structured JSON findings you can reference throughout the rest of this skill.

bash
# Find the cost_scan.py entry point
find . -path "*/forge_agent/cost_scan.py" -not -path "*/__pycache__/*" 2>/dev/null | head -1

If found, run it:

bash
python <path-to-cost_scan.py> <target> --out .reports/forge-cost-latest.json

This runs:

  1. infracost — static IaC cost analysis (Terraform/OpenTofu). Requires infracost CLI + API key.
  2. AWS Cost Explorer / GCP Billing — actual cloud spend via aws ce or gcloud billing.

If infracost is not installed or has no API key, the script prints a setup message and continues. If no cloud CLIs are configured, it continues without spend data.

Read the JSON report if written. Use its findings as ground truth for Steps 2-5 below. If the scanner found 0 findings (no IaC, no cloud CLI), proceed with manual analysis from Step 1.

Step 1: Read Everything

Scan for all IaC and cloud configuration:

bash
# Terraform
find . -name '*.tf' -not -path './.terraform/*' 2>/dev/null | head -30

# Pulumi
ls Pulumi.yaml Pulumi.*.yaml 2>/dev/null

# Platform configs
cat fly.toml 2>/dev/null
cat render.yaml 2>/dev/null
cat wrangler.toml 2>/dev/null
ls vercel.json netlify.toml railway.toml 2>/dev/null

# Docker
ls docker-compose.yml docker-compose.yaml 2>/dev/null

# Cloud identity (to infer provider and region)
gcloud config get-value project 2>/dev/null
aws sts get-caller-identity 2>/dev/null

Read every IaC and config file found. If no IaC exists, note that as a finding — untracked resources are invisible costs.

Step 1: Inventory and Estimate

For each resource, derive the monthly cost from its type, size, region, and usage pattern. Be explicit about assumptions.

Common assumptions to state upfront:

  • Always-on compute: 730 hours/month
  • Scale-to-zero compute: estimate based on any traffic signals in the codebase (if none, assume 200 hours/month active)
  • Network egress: assume 10GB/month unless there's a signal suggesting more
  • Managed DB: always-on unless explicitly configured otherwise

Use current public pricing for the detected provider and region. If region is ambiguous, use us-east-1 (AWS) or us-central1 (GCP) as default and note the assumption.

Step 2: Present the Cost Breakdown

Output a complete resource table:

┌─ Cost Breakdown — [Project Name] ─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Provider: [AWS/GCP/etc.]  |  Region: [region]  |  As of: [month year]        │
├────────────────────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────┬───────────────────┤
│ Resource                   │ Type / Size      │ Mo. Cost   │ Notes             │
├────────────────────────────┼──────────────────┼────────────┼───────────────────┤
│ [service name]             │ [type, size]     │ $XX        │ [assumption]      │
│ ...                        │ ...              │ ...        │ ...               │
├────────────────────────────┼──────────────────┼────────────┼───────────────────┤
│ TOTAL                      │                  │ $XXX/mo    │                   │
└────────────────────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────┴───────────────────┘
Step 3: Identify Top Cost Drivers

State the top 3 resources by cost. These are the only ones that matter for optimization — fixing a $3/month resource when a $200/month resource is over-provisioned is not a good use of time.

Show full SKILL.md (380 more words)Show less
Step 4: Produce the Optimization Plan

For each opportunity, make the change concrete. Not "consider downsizing" — "change instance_type from m5.xlarge to t4g.medium in infra/main.tf line 47, saves ~$95/month."

Output format per opportunity:

── Opportunity [N]: [Title] ────────────────────────────────────
  Current:   [resource, current config]
  Change to: [specific new config]
  File:      [path/to/file.tf, line N]  (or "manual step in console" if no IaC)
  Saves:     ~$XX/month
  Risk:      [None / Low / Medium — and why]
  Effort:    [minutes / hours / days]
  Change:
    [exact diff or command to make the change]
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Rank opportunities by: (savings × ease) — quick wins with real savings come first, not the theoretically largest savings that require an architecture rewrite.

Categories to always check:

Compute sizing — most common waste. Dev and staging environments frequently run production-sized instances. A background worker or low-traffic API running on 4 vCPU / 16GB is almost always over-provisioned. Check for Graviton/Arm instances (typically 20% cheaper on AWS for same performance).

Scale-to-zero — always-on compute for variable or low-traffic workloads. Cloud Run, Lambda, Fly Machines with auto_stop, and Fargate Spot can eliminate large idle-time bills.

Database tier — managed databases are often the single largest line item. A db.r5.large RDS instance for an app with 500 daily active users is almost certainly wrong. Aurora Serverless v2 or a smaller fixed instance is usually correct.

Dev/staging parity with prod — staging environments running the same size as production. Staging should be 1/4 the size at most. Turn off non-prod environments outside business hours.

Reserved/committed use — if any always-on resource has been running for 3+ months and isn't going away, a 1-year commitment typically saves 30–40%. Flag this with exact savings calculation.

Network egress and data transfer — inter-region and inter-AZ data transfer charges are invisible until they're not. A CDN (CloudFront, Cloudflare) in front of a high-egress service often pays for itself in the first month.

Storage tiers — S3 Standard vs Infrequent Access vs Glacier for objects that aren't read frequently. Database snapshots and log archives often sit in expensive storage tiers indefinitely.

Orphaned resources — load balancers with no targets, unattached EBS volumes, unused Elastic IPs, old snapshots. No IaC means these accumulate silently.

Step 5: Summary
┌─ Cost Summary ────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Current monthly spend:    $XXX                               │
│  Optimized monthly spend:  $XXX  (after all changes)          │
│  Total savings available:  $XXX/mo  (~$X,XXX/yr)             │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Quick wins (this week, low risk)                             │
│    [Opportunity 1]: -$XX/mo, [effort]                         │
│    [Opportunity 2]: -$XX/mo, [effort]                         │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Architecture verdict                                         │
│    [One sentence: is this cost-efficient for the workload,    │
│     or does the architecture need rethinking?]                │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

If the architecture itself is the problem (e.g., Kubernetes for a 3-service app, multi-region before there are users in multiple regions), say so directly and state the estimated savings from simplifying — not as a future recommendation, but as the highest-priority optimization.

Delivery

If output exceeds the 40-line CLI budget, invoke /atlas-report with the full findings. The HTML report is the output. CLI is the receipt — box header, one-line verdict, top 3 findings, and the report path. Never dump analysis to CLI.

© jeremylongshore, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file in plugins/ai-agency/tonone/skills/forge-cost of jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.

  • SKILL.md
  • .claude-plugin/plugin.json

Open the folder on GitHubat commit cfae287

Compare with similar skills

Forge Cost next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Forge Cost compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Forge Cost this skilljeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace2.8k—~2.1kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
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Spotinfoalexei-led/spotinfo164—~1.8kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
FrugalyuanboP/frugal198—~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Cloud ArchitectJeffallan/claude-skills12k—~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Cloud Architectdavila7/claude-code-templates33k8 repos~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Forge Cost

What does Forge Cost do?

Audit cloud infrastructure costs and produce a concrete optimization plan with specific changes and estimated savings. Forge Cost is an agent skill from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace. Audit cloud infrastructure costs and produce a concrete optimization plan with specific changes and estimated savings.

When should I use Forge Cost?

Forge Cost fits situations like: asked to how much is this costing; reduce cloud spend; cost optimization; are we overpaying.

How do I install Forge Cost in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill forge-cost -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/ai-agency/tonone/skills/forge-cost in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace) into .claude/skills/forge-cost in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Forge Cost in Codex?

Run `npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill forge-cost -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/ai-agency/tonone/skills/forge-cost in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace) into .agents/skills/forge-cost in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Forge Cost in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill forge-cost -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/forge-cost, .gemini/skills/forge-cost, .github/skills/forge-cost and .opencode/skills/forge-cost in your project.

What does Forge Cost need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Forge Cost needs the command-line tools its instructions call (gcloud, aws and python). Our summary lists: Python 3; Docker. Its frontmatter pre-approves these tools: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, WebSearch, Task, TodoWrite, AskUserQuestion.

Does Forge Cost access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Forge Cost safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found notes only (pre-approves every shell command (allowed-tools: bash)), nothing it rates as a warning. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Forge Cost use?

Forge Cost is published under the MIT licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Forge Cost use?

About 2.1k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 8.4k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Forge Cost?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Forge Cost: Cloud Cost Optimization (wshobson/agents, 40k stars), Spotinfo (alexei-led/spotinfo, 164 stars), Frugal (yuanboP/frugal, 198 stars) and Cloud Architect (Jeffallan/claude-skills, 12k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Forge Cost?

jeremylongshore (a GitHub user) maintains it in jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace, which has 2,827 GitHub stars. The repository holds 3,342 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 10, 2026.

Source: jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.