How I built the azure-pricing skill for GitHub Copilot, using Azure MCP and the Azure Retail Prices API to bring live Azure pricing into architecture and…

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Thomas Thornton

A developer built an `azure-pricing` skill for GitHub Copilot that uses the Azure MCP tool and Azure Retail Prices API to bring live Azure pricing into architecture and engineering workflows. The skill lets engineers query Azure pricing in plain English directly within Copilot conversations, covering pay-as-you-go, spot, reservation, and savings plan options. It can estimate costs from Terraform/Bicep/ARM templates, compare regions, and handle multi-component services like Blob Storage or Cosmos DB by asking clarifying questions for usage-based pricing. The skill is packaged in `.github/skills/` alongside a COST-FORMULAS.md reference file, making pricing knowledge reusable and consistent across teams rather than locked in individual engineers' heads.

Azure Pricing Skill for GitHub Copilot Using Azure MCP

Why this becomes a bigger problem over time

Skills as a way to distribute engineering knowledge