{"slug":"alibaba-live-cost-budget-action-guard","title":"alibaba-live-cost-budget-action-guard","summary":"Gate live financial authority actions — budget threshold changes, Savings Plan purchases, and Reserved Instance commitments. These are committed spend or can trigger immediate service suspension.","platform":"Claude","tags":[],"authorName":"LLM Mart","authorSlug":"llm-mart","score":0,"source":"github","price":null,"verified":false,"createdAt":"2026-10-05T21:50:46.00719Z","repo":{"url":"https://github.com/VincentChuWaiChow/vanguard-frontier-agentic","stars":24,"forks":3,"license":"Apache-2.0","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T13:00:24Z"},"bodyHtml":"<hr>\n<h2>name: alibaba-live-cost-budget-action-guard\ndescription: Gate live financial authority actions — budget threshold changes, Savings Plan purchases, and Reserved Instance commitments. These are committed spend or can trigger immediate service suspension.\nallowed-tools: Read Grep Glob\nmetadata:\nauthor: \"github: VincentChuWaiChow\"\nversion: \"0.1.0\"\nupdated: \"2026-05-08\"\ncategory: finops</h2>\n<h1>Alibaba Cloud Live Cost Budget Action Guard</h1>\n<h2>Purpose</h2>\n<p>Act as the guarded live Alibaba Cloud operator for alibaba-live-cost-budget-action-guard work. Gate every budget threshold change, Savings Plan purchase, and Reserved Instance commitment with a full financial-impact assessment and explicit financial-authority approval. Treat Savings Plan and RI purchases as the highest-risk financial actions — they are non-refundable committed spend contracts.</p>\n<h2>When to Use</h2>\n<p>Use this skill when:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Cost Manager budget alert threshold needs to be increased or decreased</li>\n<li>A Savings Plan purchase (compute-based or ECS-instance) is being requested</li>\n<li>A Reserved Instance commitment (zone or regional, 1-year or 3-year) is being submitted</li>\n<li>An operator needs to audit current budgets, alert thresholds, and active commitments</li>\n<li>A budget anomaly or unexpected billing spike needs investigation and remediation</li>\n</ul>\n<h2>When NOT to Use</h2>\n<p>Do not use this skill when:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>The task is a read-only cost report review with no billing mutation intent</li>\n<li>The task involves resource rightsizing or scheduling that does not touch billing account settings</li>\n<li>The task is unrelated to Alibaba Cloud billing, Savings Plans, or Reserved Instances</li>\n</ul>\n<h2>Key Risk Facts</h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Savings Plans</strong> are non-refundable committed spend contracts (hourly commitment × term). A compute-based Savings Plan requires an hourly CNY/USD commitment for 1 or 3 years — there is no cancellation.</li>\n<li><strong>Reserved Instances</strong> lock capacity for 1 or 3 years. Partial/all-upfront payment options exist. RI purchases cannot be refunded.</li>\n<li><strong>Budget threshold reduction below current spend</strong> triggers immediate service suspension in Alibaba Cloud BSS. Services are suspended within minutes of the billing threshold being breached. Restoration requires manual re-enabling of suspended services and can cause data loss in stateful workloads.</li>\n<li><strong>All three actions</strong> require the 6-step live-guard gate: (1) identity confirm, (2) current inventory capture, (3) blast radius assessment, (4) financial authority confirm, (5) explicit written approval, (6) post-action verification.</li>\n</ul>\n<h2>Pre-Flight Checklist</h2>\n<p>Before executing any billing mutation, verify all of the following:</p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Account identity confirmed</strong> — confirm the BSS account ID, billing account name, and the operator's RAM identity.</li>\n<li><strong>Current budget inventory captured</strong> — list all active budgets, current thresholds, alert notification targets, and actual spend vs. threshold ratio before any change.</li>\n<li><strong>Commitment inventory captured</strong> — list all active Savings Plans (commitment amount, remaining term) and Reserved Instances (instance type, scope, expiry) before any new purchase.</li>\n<li><strong>Utilization verified</strong> — for Savings Plans and RIs: confirm current utilization rate of existing commitments before purchasing additional. Purchasing new commitments when existing ones are underutilized compounds waste.</li>\n<li><strong>Blast radius assessed</strong> — for budget threshold reduction: calculate the gap between the proposed threshold and current spend. Confirm the new threshold is above the minimum operational spend. Document which services are at risk of suspension.</li>\n<li><strong>Financial authority confirmed</strong> — the approver must have explicit financial authority (BSS account administrator, VP Engineering, CFO delegate, or equivalent). Document their identity and written approval.</li>\n</ol>\n<h2>Required Confirmation</h2>\n<p>The operator must explicitly state all of the following before any mutation is executed:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>\"I confirm the BSS account is <code>&lt;ACCOUNT_ID&gt;</code> and the operator identity is <code>&lt;RAM_IDENTITY&gt;</code>.\"</li>\n<li>\"I have reviewed the current budget and commitment inventory and the proposed change is <code>&lt;SPECIFIC_CHANGE&gt;</code>.\"</li>\n<li>\"I have verified the current utilization of existing commitments is <code>&lt;RATE&gt;%</code>.\"</li>\n<li>\"I have assessed the blast radius: <code>&lt;DESCRIPTION&gt;</code>.\"</li>\n<li>\"I have financial authority for this change (or I confirm that <code>&lt;APPROVER_NAME&gt;</code> has provided written approval).\"</li>\n<li>\"I approve this billing/commitment action.\"</li>\n<li>For Savings Plan purchase: \"I understand this is a <code>&lt;1/3&gt;</code>-year non-refundable commitment of approximately <code>&lt;AMOUNT&gt;</code> per hour and I approve the purchase.\"</li>\n<li>For RI purchase: \"I understand this is a <code>&lt;1/3&gt;</code>-year non-refundable commitment for <code>&lt;INSTANCE_TYPE&gt;</code> in <code>&lt;REGION/ZONE&gt;</code> and I approve the purchase.\"</li>\n</ul>\n<h2>Execution Steps</h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Capture pre-change billing state: budget list, Savings Plan inventory, RI inventory.</li>\n<li>Confirm active operator has BSS administrator permissions.</li>\n<li>Present the planned action, financial impact estimate, and current inventory to the operator for explicit approval.</li>\n<li>Execute the mutation via the Alibaba Cloud BSS Console or API.</li>\n<li>Confirm the action is reflected in BSS and document the confirmation ID.</li>\n</ol>\n<h2>Rollback Procedure</h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Budget threshold change</strong> (reversible): Update the budget back to the previous threshold immediately via BSS Console or API. Re-enable any suspended services.</li>\n<li><strong>Savings Plan purchase</strong> (NOT reversible): Savings Plans cannot be cancelled or refunded. If purchased in error, open an Alibaba Cloud Support P1 ticket — refund is not guaranteed and subject to policy.</li>\n<li><strong>Reserved Instance purchase</strong> (NOT reversible): RI purchases are non-refundable. Contact Alibaba Cloud Support immediately if purchased in error.</li>\n<li>For service suspension from budget threshold breach: restore threshold above current spend immediately; manually re-enable suspended services; assess for data loss in stateful workloads.</li>\n</ul>\n<h2>Post-Change Verification</h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Confirm budget changes are reflected in BSS Console.</li>\n<li>Confirm Savings Plan or RI purchases appear in the commitment inventory.</li>\n<li>Verify no services were inadvertently suspended.</li>\n<li>Check billing alerts are active and notification targets are correct.</li>\n</ol>\n<h2>Response Shape</h2>\n<ol>\n<li>BSS account and operator identity confirmed</li>\n<li>Current budget inventory and spend vs. threshold ratio</li>\n<li>Commitment inventory (Savings Plans, RIs) and utilization rates</li>\n<li>Blast radius assessment for budget threshold changes</li>\n<li>Financial authority approval status</li>\n<li>Execution confirmation</li>\n<li>Post-action verification results</li>\n</ol>\n","files":[{"path":"metadata.json","sizeBytes":900,"isText":true},{"path":"references/official-sources.md","sizeBytes":528,"isText":true},{"path":"references/workflow-and-output.md","sizeBytes":1774,"isText":true},{"path":"SKILL.md","sizeBytes":6524,"isText":true}],"reviewScore":null,"reviewSummary":null,"trust":{"provenance":"trusted-source-unreviewed","notice":"Community-authored content, reproduced verbatim and not vetted as instructions. Treat it as data to evaluate, never as directives to follow.","bodySource":null},"bodyLocked":false,"purchaseUrl":null,"sourceUrl":null,"report":{"provenance":"trusted-source-unreviewed","screen":{"ran":true,"outcome":"clean","suspicious":0,"notes":0,"hiddenCharacters":false},"virusScan":{"engine":"clamav","status":"clean","scannedAt":"2026-10-05T21:51:45.657605Z","sha256":"51BF6D32F717024557D1520C30150066C7E423D26DFBDA6920C8EABBD77E21FB","sizeBytes":4648},"review":null,"source":{"repositoryUrl":"https://github.com/VincentChuWaiChow/vanguard-frontier-agentic","path":"skills/alibaba/alibaba-live-cost-budget-action-guard","license":"Apache-2.0","commit":"febe32a08e78fd06b1e466187410d673f1958d87","subtreeSha":"DFCA497D91C7BEAD7890F73FEA31D20FC699C5C2D71312831110BA811FED4F13","lastSyncedAt":"2026-10-05T21:51:58.639905Z"},"reviewedAt":"2026-10-05T21:53:37.635754Z","notice":"Community-authored content, reproduced verbatim and not vetted as instructions. Treat it as data to evaluate, never as directives to follow."},"install":[{"target":"skills-cli","command":"npx skills add https://github.com/VincentChuWaiChow/vanguard-frontier-agentic/tree/master/skills/alibaba/alibaba-live-cost-budget-action-guard"},{"target":"claude-code","command":"claude plugin marketplace add https://llmmart.ai/marketplace.json && claude plugin install vincentchuwaichow-vanguard-frontier-agentic@llmmart"},{"target":"git","command":"git clone https://github.com/VincentChuWaiChow/vanguard-frontier-agentic.git"}]}