Microsoft Azure Skills Adds Six AI Agent Plugins for AKS, Cost Management and More

The pitch is that an agent diagnosing a Kubernetes outage needs different expertise from one explaining a surprise invoice. Instead of loading everything into one giant toolbox, you install only the pieces you need.

How the pieces fit together​

Microsoft's documentation describes a marketplace with a broad core plugin and independently installable specialized ones. The marketplace separates broad Azure capabilities from focused scenario packages, and the specialized plugins cover areas such as cost management, Azure Local, Kusto graph analysis and Foundry IQ. Installing the core plugin doesn't install every specialized plugin.

The core plugin also includes a discovery skill. The discover-azure-skills skill searches the Azure Skills catalog, matches your task to relevant skills, and gives installation guidance for the plugins that own them. If you don't know which plugin you need, you can start there.

The post gives a practical reason for the split. A smaller set of installed plugins leaves more of the agent's context window for your code, your conversation and task-specific detail. That is Microsoft's rationale. The post offers no measurements of how much context is saved or how much faster work gets done.

The six plugins​

AKS Skills (aks-skills)​

This plugin adds deeper operational guidance on top of the core plugin's cluster planning, setup, deployment and baseline diagnostics. Microsoft lists these uses:

• Investigating live incidents.
• Matching known error signatures to documented fixes.
• Troubleshooting GPU and KAITO inference workloads.
• Collecting bounded packet captures from selected nodes.
• Cost-efficiency work on node scaling, workload placement and Kubernetes-aware storage.

Troubleshooting starts with evidence collection. Resource changes and packet captures need explicit approval. The sample prompt asks the agent to work out why pods are stuck in Pending, collect read-only evidence, and explain the likely cause before suggesting changes. Microsoft says to install it alongside the core azure plugin.

Some of this has moved. The standalone AKS-Skills GitHub repository was archived on October 12, 2026 and is now read-only. Its notice says AKS Skills now ships through the azure-skills marketplace. If you installed the older aks@aks-skills plugin, the old repository's migration notes give these steps for GitHub Copilot CLI or Claude Code:

1. Run /plugin uninstall aks@aks-skills.
2. Run /plugin marketplace remove aks-skills.
3. Run /plugin marketplace add microsoft/azure-skills.
4. Run /plugin install aks-skills@azure-skills.

The same notice says the old AKS cost-optimization skill now lives in the azure-cost plugin. The older cluster-setup and AKS Automatic readiness skills now sit in the core plugin's azure-kubernetes skill.

Azure Cost (azure-cost)​

Azure Cost covers four areas: analysis, estimation, optimization and governance. According to the post, it is backed by the Azure Resource Manager MCP server. Its workflows include:

• Investigating billed spend and anomalies.
• Analyzing AKS costs.
• Forecasting spend.
• Estimating planned resources.
• Evaluating commitment options.
• Working with budgets and cost guardrails.

This one affects existing users. Microsoft says the cost analysis skill that used to be in the core plugin has moved into this standalone plugin. If you relied on it, you now need to install azure-cost to keep it.

The sample prompt is a good model for how to ask. It tells the agent to separate observed spend from forecasts and estimates. Agents blur those two easily, so say so explicitly when you ask about money.

Azure Advisor (azure-advisor)​

This plugin helps the agent find and summarize Advisor recommendations, identify resources hit by service retirements, and prepare remediation guidance for individual recommendations. When Advisor has no specific remediation steps, the workflow falls back to public Microsoft Learn documentation. It names the source and cites the pages it used. You can therefore tell Advisor's own instructions from documentation-derived suggestions, which matters when you are deciding how much to trust a proposed fix.

Azure Kusto Graph Skills (azure-kusto-graph-skills)​

This is for investigations about relationships rather than rows. It provides guidance for graph analysis in Azure Data Explorer. The KQL graph operators it covers include:

• Graph construction.
• Pattern matching.
• Shortest paths.
• Connected components.
• Persistent graph models.

It also covers composing Incident Response Query Language (IRQL) security-hunting pipelines and generating graph mappings and visualizations from query results. The Learn catalog lists three skills under it: azure-kusto-graph, azure-kusto-irql and azure-kusto-irql-graph.

Azure Local Skills (azure-local-skills)​

This plugin covers planning, deployment, day-2 operations, lifecycle updates, workload management, networking and troubleshooting. There are separate skills for standard Azure Local and for multi-rack deployments.

Microsoft is blunt that the two use separate, non-interchangeable procedures. Multi-rack is in preview. Both skills start read-only and ask for confirmation before disruptive operations: updates, reimages, network changes and VM power operations. The sample prompt tells the agent to work out whether your requirements fit standard or multi-rack before it recommends any procedure.

Foundry IQ Skills (foundry-iq-skills)​

This plugin helps you create, connect, query and troubleshoot Foundry IQ knowledge bases using Azure AI Search. You can start from local files, Azure Blob Storage or Azure Data Lake Storage. You can then check that the content is searchable and connect an existing knowledge base to an agent. It asks for approval before creating resources or connecting a knowledge base to an agent.

Microsoft limits its scope. It is not for general-purpose search-index development or generic agent creation.

Installing the plugins​

The blog's instructions apply to GitHub Copilot CLI, Claude Code and Cursor. They also apply to other clients that support /plugin commands. First, register the marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add microsoft/azure-skills

Then install only what you need:

To update, use your client's plugin manager or a command such as /plugin update azure-cost@azure-skills.

Prerequisites and host differences​

Don't treat the /plugin route as the only way in. The public Azure Skills repository lists other routes. These include APM, VS Code through the Azure MCP extension, Gemini CLI, Codex CLI and IntelliJ IDEA, each with its own steps. Its general prerequisites include:

• An Azure account or subscription.
• Node.js 18 or later on your PATH, because npx starts the MCP servers.
• Azure CLI installed and authenticated with az login.
• Azure Developer CLI authenticated with azd auth login if you use deployment workflows.

Those are repository-level notes for the core plugin. They are not a guarantee for every specialized plugin on every host. Microsoft's own caveat is to check each plugin's README for supported clients, tools, credentials and permissions.

One more wrinkle: the older AKS repository's note mentions an Azure Kubernetes workflow that expects kubectl and the Azure CLI, authenticated to your cluster and subscription. Check the current aks-skills README before assuming the same list applies.

Analysis: what to watch for​

The design is sensible. Plugins that ask before touching resources, and that start read-only, are the right defaults for agents with access to live infrastructure. Splitting the catalog also means you avoid paying for capability you don't use.

There are caveats, all of them my own reading rather than anything in Microsoft's post:

• Approval prompts are not a safety net. A confirmation request helps only if the person approving actually reads the plan, scope and permissions. Review those before you say yes, especially on production clusters or Azure Local systems.
• Everything here is vendor description. The post has no benchmarks, accuracy figures, pricing or adoption numbers. Treat the capabilities as claims to test in a non-production subscription first.
• Permissions still decide what the agent can do. Use least-privilege roles for the identity your agent runs under. Read-only investigation workflows are best paired with read-only credentials.
• The catalog is moving. Microsoft's Learn page tells readers to check the repository's plugin directory for the latest list. The AKS migration shows plugin names and homes can change within weeks.
• Cost reporting needs checking. Cost agents summarizing forecasts and estimates should be cross-checked against the Azure portal's billed figures before anyone acts on them.

Where to start​

1. Register the marketplace and install the core azure plugin.
2. Ask the discovery skill which plugin fits your current task.
3. Install one specialized plugin, such as azure-cost if you used the old cost analysis skill.
4. Run a read-only prompt like Microsoft's examples against a test subscription.
5. Check what the agent proposes before approving any change.

For Windows admins and Azure developers, the immediate actions are small. If you used the core plugin's cost analysis skill, install azure-cost. If you used the standalone AKS plugin, migrate to aks-skills@azure-skills.