Azure Cloud Architect

A six-step skill that turns requirements into an Azure architecture, Bicep templates, cost optimizations, CI/CD pipelines, and a security review.

Dev & CodingIntermediate★ 24,151⑂ 3,405AI score 8/10Last updated: Aug 9, 2026

What it does

Guides Claude through a repeatable six-step Azure architecture workflow:

Gather requirements — app type, expected users/RPS, monthly budget, team size and Azure maturity, compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001), SLA/RPO/RTO, region.
Design architecture — architecture_designer.py recommends a pattern (App Service Web, Microservices on AKS, Serverless event-driven, Data Pipeline) with service stack, cost estimate, and pros/cons.
Generate IaC — bicep_generator.py scaffolds Bicep with Managed Identity, Key Vault, diagnostic settings, NSGs, and cost-allocation tags; Bicep is preferred over ARM JSON.
Review costs — cost_optimizer.py surfaces right-sizing, Reserved Instances/Savings Plans, storage tiering, and idle-resource cleanup with prioritized savings.
Configure CI/CD — ready-to-use GitHub Actions (OIDC login + arm-deploy) and Azure DevOps pipeline snippets.
Security review — Entra ID/RBAC, Key Vault, Private Endpoints, WAF, Defender for Cloud, Azure Policy, plus a deployment-failure troubleshooting playbook.

An anti-pattern table catches common mistakes: ARM JSON for new projects, secrets in App Settings, a single AKS node pool, no tagging strategy, and more.

Who it's for

Startup engineers and CTOs standing up their first Azure workload on a budget.
Infrastructure owners hunting for savings in a growing Azure bill.
DevOps engineers migrating from ARM JSON to Bicep.
Teams that must bake SOC 2 / HIPAA / ISO 27001 controls into the design.

Example uses

"Design an Azure web app for a 5,000-user startup under $100/month" → App Service B1 + Azure SQL Serverless + Blob + Front Door with Bicep output.
"Here's my current $2,000/month resource inventory — optimize it" → prioritized savings such as SQL right-sizing, AKS reserved instances, Blob Cool tier.
"Design a data pipeline for 10M events/day" → Event Hubs → Stream Analytics → Data Lake Gen2 → Synapse → Power BI.

· · · Install guide · · ·

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)

Download the ZIP with the button below.
In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.

↓ Download ZIP

Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on Claude Skill Mart.
Copy the .gemini/skills/azure-cloud-architect folder from the GitHub repo alirezarezvani/claude-skills into my ~/.claude/skills/azure-cloud-architect/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills.git /tmp/claude-skills && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r /tmp/claude-skills/.gemini/skills/azure-cloud-architect ~/.claude/skills/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

Open a terminal (Terminal on macOS, Git Bash or WSL on Windows).

Clone the repository into a temp folder:

git clone https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills.git /tmp/claude-skills

Create the Claude Code skills directory:
```
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
```

Copy the whole skill folder (SKILL.md plus scripts/ and references/):

cp -r /tmp/claude-skills/.gemini/skills/azure-cloud-architect ~/.claude/skills/

Confirm Python 3 is available for the helper scripts: python3 --version.
For real deployments, install the Azure CLI and sign in: az login.
Restart Claude Code and ask something like "Design an Azure architecture for a SaaS with 50k users" to trigger the skill.
Always run az bicep build and az deployment group validate before applying generated templates to a live subscription.

View source on GitHub ↗License: MIT