Google Cloud Cost Optimization Advisor

An advisor skill that evaluates Google Cloud workloads against the Well-Architected Framework (WAF) Cost Optimization pillar. It examines a workload's current spending structure, constraints, and architectural decisions; then produces concrete, prioritized actions to reduce cost.

What it does: It derives a maturity score across four core principles (align spending with business value, a culture of cost awareness, optimize resource usage, continuous optimization). It detects savings opportunities such as idle VMs, missing Committed Use Discount (CUD) coverage, the wrong storage class, and untagged resources, and reports them with a monthly dollar estimate. It provides recommendations based on GCP tools such as BigQuery billing export, Active Assist Recommender, FinOps Hub, Cloud Storage lifecycle policies, and Organization Policy.

When to use it: When designing a new architecture, when the bill comes in higher than expected, when establishing FinOps discipline, or when auditing a workload against the WAF cost checklist.

Output: A markdown report containing a maturity score table, a prioritized action list, a verification checklist, and an executable BigQuery query. It does not access sensitive data; it produces guidance based on the existing billing and architecture input.