{
 "schema": "aiblocks-page/1",
 "id": "technical-capacity-cost-planner",
 "type": "skill",
 "name": "Service capacity and cost planner",
 "summary": "Bring demand, speed goals and prices. Get capacity estimates, unit costs and tests to run.",
 "headline": "Service capacity and cost planner",
 "subhead": "Share demand, speed goals and infrastructure prices. It estimates capacity and cost, compares tradeoffs and lists tests needed to check the estimate.",
 "job": {
  "id": "build-software",
  "name": "Build and ship software"
 },
 "level": "intermediate",
 "thinking": "medium",
 "tested": true,
 "updated": "2026-11-03",
 "first_published": "2026-10-25",
 "inputs": [
  {
   "type": "question",
   "required": true,
   "label": "Question",
   "what": "the problem, decision or piece of work you want help with, and what a good outcome looks like"
  },
  {
   "type": "dataset",
   "required": true,
   "label": "Dataset",
   "what": "data files to process or analyse, such as a CSV or JSON export, logs, lab or sensor files, with their format and where they came from"
  }
 ],
 "outputs": [
  {
   "type": "plan",
   "required": true,
   "label": "Plan",
   "what": "a dated plan: what to do, in what order, with a decision rule for each step"
  },
  {
   "type": "audit_report",
   "required": true,
   "label": "Audit report",
   "what": "findings with evidence, severity, missing inputs and next actions"
  }
 ],
 "you_give": [
  "Traffic/growth/peak estimates, current resources and measured performance.",
  "Aligned cost records, budget, reliability limits and accountable owners."
 ],
 "you_get": [
  "A demand-to-capacity projection with triggers and unit-cost calculations.",
  "A load/soak evidence plan and an owned budget-versus-reliability decision."
 ],
 "use_when": [
  "Traffic is growing and you need to know when your service runs out of room.",
  "A big sale or launch is coming and you must size for the peak.",
  "Your cloud bill is rising and you want the cost per customer or per request.",
  "You must choose between a higher uptime target and a lower bill."
 ],
 "skip_when": [
  "You need a profit and loss statement, funding scenarios or SaaS metrics: use a finance tool or your accountant.",
  "You need servers or cloud resources set up: ask your platform or DevOps engineer.",
  "You want general tips to cut your cloud bill: this plan will not give fixed savings rates or one target for all."
 ],
 "output_sample": {
  "input": [
   "Your traffic history, growth estimate and peak events",
   "Your current resource counts and measured performance",
   "Your cost records for the same period as the traffic",
   "Your reliability targets, budget cap and named owners (optional)"
  ],
  "output": [
   {
    "name": "Demand and capacity model",
    "contains": "Traffic mapped to resource limits, with the headroom left and the assumptions behind it."
   },
   {
    "name": "Unit cost",
    "contains": "Cost per unit of demand, with periods and scope matched, and skew across customers checked where it matters."
   },
   {
    "name": "Budget and quota controls",
    "contains": "Spend thresholds and quota or rate limit rules tied to the capacity triggers."
   },
   {
    "name": "Load and soak test plan",
    "contains": "The tests needed to back each capacity claim, and which claims have no evidence yet."
   },
   {
    "name": "Cost versus reliability decision",
    "contains": "The tradeoff laid out for the named owner, with open items flagged."
   },
   {
    "name": "Scenarios",
    "contains": "Growth, peak, degraded and cost-constrained cases run through the same model."
   }
  ]
 },
 "how_to_use": [
  "Start here. Paste only the job you need, such as a growth projection, a peak-event plan, a unit cost, a budget cap or a load test plan. Reply with your inputs when your AI asks. You do not need to paste the whole skill at once.",
  "Gather your traffic history, current resource counts, and a cost export for the same period.",
  "Add your reliability targets, budget cap and the names of who owns each decision.",
  "Open Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini and paste in the skill. No code or paid tool is needed.",
  "Paste your inputs and ask for a capacity and cost plan. Give your AI the matching template from the skill folder: capacity-model.md for a growth projection, load-soak-test-plan.md for tests, unit-economics-record.md for unit cost, or budget-quota-decision.md for spend rules.",
  "Check the flagged gaps. Any claim marked as untested needs a real load test before you rely on it.",
  "Next, find waste in the bill with the cloud bill waste finder, and set your uptime target with the reliability target setter."
 ],
 "checks": [],
 "next": [
  {
   "name": "AWS cost waste finder",
   "url": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/cloud-bill-waste-finder",
   "why": "AWS cost waste finder"
  },
  {
   "name": "Service reliability target planner",
   "url": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/reliability-target-setter",
   "why": "Service reliability target planner"
  }
 ],
 "source": {
  "by": "magnus919",
  "repo": "magnus919/agent-skills",
  "url": "https://github.com/magnus919/agent-skills/tree/92c327e525da69c9ad3812fd223a1770e977c2e3/capacity-and-cost-engineering",
  "licence": "MIT",
  "original_name": "capacity-and-cost-engineering",
  "commit": "92c327e525da69c9ad3812fd223a1770e977c2e3"
 },
 "credits": [
  {
   "title": "capacity-and-cost-engineering skill",
   "by": "magnus919",
   "url": "https://github.com/magnus919/agent-skills/tree/92c327e525da69c9ad3812fd223a1770e977c2e3/capacity-and-cost-engineering",
   "used": "Original instructions and supporting files, with attribution and the MIT licence. Display copy describes the task."
  }
 ],
 "files": [
  "evals/evals.json",
  "LICENSE.md",
  "README.md",
  "references/discovery-brief.md",
  "references/multi-tenant-capacity-and-unit-cost.md",
  "references/source-index.md",
  "templates/budget-quota-decision.md",
  "templates/capacity-model.md",
  "templates/load-soak-test-plan.md",
  "templates/slo-cost-tradeoff-record.md",
  "templates/tenant-capacity-model.md",
  "templates/unit-economics-record.md"
 ],
 "links": {
  "page": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/technical-capacity-cost-planner",
  "markdown": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/technical-capacity-cost-planner.md",
  "json": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/technical-capacity-cost-planner.json",
  "instructions": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/technical-capacity-cost-planner/SKILL.md",
  "download": "https://useaiblocks.com/skills/technical-capacity-cost-planner.zip",
  "api_item": "https://useaiblocks.com/api/v1/items/technical-capacity-cost-planner",
  "api_document": "https://useaiblocks.com/api/v1/documents/skill/technical-capacity-cost-planner",
  "mcp": "https://useaiblocks.com/mcp"
 }
}