home / skills / shotaiuchi / dotclaude / design-cost
This skill helps evaluate infrastructure proposals for total cost of ownership, optimizing spend and identifying cost-saving opportunities across resources.
npx playbooks add skill shotaiuchi/dotclaude --skill design-costReview the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.
---
name: design-cost
description: >-
Cost-focused design analysis. Apply when evaluating design proposals for
infrastructure costs, operational overhead, licensing implications,
and total cost of ownership.
user-invocable: false
---
# Cost Analyst Perspective
Evaluate design proposals from a financial and resource efficiency standpoint.
## Analysis Checklist
### Infrastructure Costs
- Estimate compute, storage, and network costs for the proposed design
- Compare resource requirements against current baseline spending
- Check for cost spikes under peak load or seasonal traffic patterns
- Verify that auto-scaling policies prevent unnecessary overprovisioning
- Assess whether reserved capacity or spot instances reduce costs
### Operational Overhead
- Evaluate the staffing required to operate and maintain the design
- Check that incident response procedures are proportionate to complexity
- Verify that deployment and rollback processes minimize downtime costs
- Assess the monitoring and observability investment needed
### Licensing & Vendor Lock-in
- Identify proprietary dependencies and their licensing cost trajectories
- Check for open-source alternatives that reduce licensing risk
- Assess the switching cost if a vendor changes terms or pricing
- Verify that data portability is maintained across vendor boundaries
### Total Cost of Ownership
- Calculate development cost including ramp-up and training time
- Assess ongoing maintenance cost relative to alternative approaches
- Check whether the design amortizes investment over its expected lifespan
- Compare the total cost of the proposal against simpler alternatives
## Output Format
Report findings with strength ratings:
| Strength | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| Strong | Cost-efficient with clear ROI and controlled spending |
| Moderate | Acceptable costs with some optimization opportunities |
| Weak | Excessive costs or poor return on investment |
| Neutral | Insufficient data to assess cost implications |
This skill performs cost-focused design analysis to evaluate proposals for infrastructure, operational, licensing, and total cost of ownership impacts. It produces concise findings and a strength rating to inform financial decisions and prioritize optimizations. Use it to compare options, detect hidden costs, and guide procurement or architecture choices.
The skill inspects design inputs to estimate compute, storage, and network costs and compares them against baseline spending. It reviews operational overhead needs, licensing exposure, and vendor lock-in risks, then computes an expected total cost of ownership including development, training, and maintenance. Findings are summarized with actionable recommendations and a strength rating (Strong, Moderate, Weak, Neutral).
What data do you need for an accurate assessment?
Usage metrics, baseline spend, expected traffic patterns, deployment cadence, third-party license details, and staffing assumptions enable the most precise estimates.
How is the strength rating determined?
Ratings combine estimated costs, risk factors (licensing and lock-in), operational overhead, and comparison to simpler alternatives to classify ROI and cost control.