Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
The FinOps Agent is the same agent whether you use it in the Vantage console or in Slack. This guide shows what the agent can do and how to phrase your prompts so you get useful answers the first time.
Every prompt example on this page is copy-pasteable. Click the Copy button on any prompt card and paste it into the agent in the console or in Slack. In Slack, prepend @Vantage to the prompt so the agent is notified.
The FinOps Agent is a purpose-built FinOps assistant. Its read and write actions are powered by tools from the Vantage MCP (cost data and resource management) and the Vantage Docs MCP (product knowledge); however, the agent takes this one step further and brings FinOps reasoning, multi-step planning, and awareness of your workspace, RBAC scope, and audit context. For a complete reference of the underlying tools, see the Vantage MCP Tools table.The sections below organize the agent’s capabilities into nine categories. Each accordion explains, in plain language, what you can ask for and provides ready-to-copy prompts.
Explore your cloud costs
Ask the agent to summarize, break down, or compare cloud spend across providers, services, accounts, regions, and tags. Useful for ad-hoc cost questions, executive summaries, and identifying drivers of change.Underlying MCP tools: query-costs, list-costs, list-cost-providers, list-cost-services, get-cost-provider-accounts, list-cost-integrations.
What did we spend on AWS Lambda last month in the Production workspace?
Provide a breakdown of costs by service for Datadog from July 1 to July 31, 2025.
Compare AWS spend in October 2025 vs. September 2025. What were the top three drivers of the change, and which accounts and regions contributed?
Which cost providers and integrations are connected to my Vantage account?
Build and manage Cost Reports
Ask the agent to create, retrieve, list, delete, or forecast Cost Reports. The agent generates the VQL filter for you based on a plain-language description and can place reports in a specific Folder. You can reference an existing report by pasting its console URL (for example, https://console.vantage.sh/reports/rprt_xyz789abc123def4) or by its token (for example, rprt_xyz789abc123def4).Underlying MCP tools: create-cost-report, get-cost-report, list-cost-reports, delete-cost-report, get-cost-report-forecast, list-unit-costs.
Create a Cost Report titled "AWS RDS - October 2025" filtered to AWS RDS for October 2025 and place it in the Infra folder.
List my Cost Reports in the Engineering folder, then show me the filter and groupings on the largest one.
Show me the daily unit costs for this Cost Report (rprt_xyz789abc123def4) over the last 30 days.
Organize with Folders and Dashboards
Use the agent to organize Cost Reports into Folders and to assemble Dashboards from existing reports, widgets, and saved filters.Underlying MCP tools: create-folder, update-folder, delete-folder, list-folders, get-folder, create-dashboard, list-dashboards.
Show me my existing Dashboards and Folders. Which Dashboards are most relevant to AWS spend?
Investigate cost anomalies
Ask the agent to find, explain, and triage Cost Anomaly Alerts. It pulls the daily cost data around the spike, identifies attributed resources, and explains what likely changed.Underlying MCP tools: list-anomalies, get-anomaly, update-anomaly.
Investigate the anomalies on my AWS Costs report from the past 14 days. What's driving each one, and are any of them correlated?
Explain the anomaly on my "AWS Production Costs" report from yesterday. Which service spiked, what's the magnitude, and which resources are attributed?
Find and act on cost recommendations
Ask the agent to surface, explain, and drill into cost recommendations such as Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and rightsizing opportunities.Underlying MCP tools: list-recommendations, get-recommendation-details, get-recommendation-resources, get-recommendation-resource-details.
Cost remediation actions and approvals run through Slack. The console agent can describe and explain recommendations but cannot purchase Savings Plans, RIs, or rightsize resources at this time.
List all open AWS cost recommendations, ranked by estimated monthly savings. Which three should I prioritize this week?
Show me the resources affected by rightsizing recommendations, with their current and recommended instance types.
Track Budgets and Cost Alerts
Ask the agent to create, update, and review Budgets and Cost Alerts. The agent can compare actual spend against budget targets and set up threshold-based notifications.Underlying MCP tools: create-budget, update-budget, delete-budget, get-budget, list-budgets, create-cost-alert, get-cost-alert, list-cost-alerts.
Create a monthly Budget of $50,000 for my Production AWS Costs report (rprt_xyz789abc123def4) for the rest of the calendar year.
List all Budgets in the Finance workspace and compare actual spend against budget targets. Which are off-track?
Create a weekly Cost Alert that notifies the #finops Slack channel if AWS RDS spend exceeds $10,000 in any 7-day window.
Tag and allocate costs
Ask the agent to explore tags and tag values across providers and to create Virtual Tag configurations that normalize and combine cost attribution across providers.Underlying MCP tools: list-tags, list-tag-values, create-virtual-tag-config.
What tag keys are available for filtering my AWS costs, and what are the most common values for the team tag?
Create a Virtual Tag called team that combines the AWS team tag and the Kubernetes organization/team label. Backfill it to January 2026 and let it override provider-supplied tags.
Show last month's cost grouped by tag:team in the Engineering workspace. Which team spent the most?
Inspect resources, workspace, and audit history
Ask the agent about specific cloud resources, what workspaces and teams you have access to, and what’s been happening in your account.Underlying MCP tools: list-provider-resources, get-provider-resource, list-audit-logs, get-myself, get-users, get-team, get-teams.
Which workspaces do I have access to, and what's my access level in each?
List my AWS EC2 instances in us-east-1 that cost more than $100 per month, sorted by cost.
Show me details and the cost breakdown for this resource: arn:aws:ec2:us-east-1:123456789012:instance/i-0abcd1234ef567890.
Show me audit log entries from the past 7 days for changes to Cost Reports and Budgets in my workspace.
Send feedback to Vantage
Have something to share with the Vantage team? Tell the agent and it will route your feedback directly to us via the submit-user-feedback tool.
I have feedback to share: [describe what worked well, what didn't, or what you'd like to see].
The sections above show what to ask for. The next three sections—Intent, Scope, and Direction—help you phrase prompts so the agent gets you the right answer the first time.
1. Intent
What you want the agent to do—ask a question or take an action.
2. Scope
What data the agent should look at—workspace, provider, time range, groupings.
3. Direction
How you want the answer presented—summary, table, checklist, and so on.
Every productive interaction with the FinOps Agent starts with a clear action or question. The agent supports two intent categories: ask the agent questions or ask the agent to perform actions.
You can ask questions about your cloud costs or about Vantage features and functionality.
What drove our AWS EC2 costs last month?
Which Azure services are trending up this week?
Show me any compute-related anomalies for the past week.
Can you explain the difference between Virtual Tags and Segments? When should I use one over the other?
You:@Vantage What drove our AWS EC2 costs last month?The Agent:EC2 Cost Drivers — Last MonthScope used: Production Workspace (token wrkspc_a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8)Period: 2024-10-01 to 2024-10-31Filter: AWS provider, service Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - ComputeTotal EC2 Compute Spend: $127,450.23Key Takeaways• One AWS account (123456789012) in us-west-2 drove ~94.2% of EC2 compute costs.• All EC2 compute spend was in us-west-2.• Other accounts contributed minimal EC2 compute spend.Breakdown by Account and Region| AWS Account ID | Region | EC2 Compute Cost (USD) | Share of EC2 | Notes ||----------------|-----------|------------------------|--------------|----------------------|| 123456789012 | us-west-2 | $120,058.12 | 94.2% | Primary cost driver || 987654321098 | us-west-2 | $6,892.45 | 5.4% | Secondary contributor|| 555666777888 | us-west-2 | $412.18 | 0.32% | Minor || 111222333444 | us-west-2 | $87.48 | 0.07% | Minor || 999888777666 | us-west-2 | $0.00 | ~0% | Negligible |What this means• The vast majority of EC2 compute cost is concentrated in a single account and single region.• To refine "what drove cost" further (e.g., by usage type/purchase option, or top instances), we can: • Group by charge_type to separate On-Demand vs. Savings Plans/RIs and other line items. • Group by resource_id to identify the top-cost EC2 instances. • Add tag-based groupings (for example, tag:environment) if you use tags for ownership or workload mapping.Want deeper detail?• Do you want me to: • Break down by purchase option/charge type (On-Demand vs. SP/RI vs. Credits)? • List the top-cost EC2 instances in that account? • Run the analysis for a different workspace instead of Production? • Create a Cost Report you can open in Vantage with this exact filter and date range?Reply with your preferred next step and, if needed, the workspace name you want analyzed.
You can also ask the agent to create or update Vantage resources, generate Terraform code, or assemble artifacts on your behalf.
Create a Cost Report filtered to AWS Lambda for the last 30 days and put it in the Infra folder.
I have a list of teams in a CSV file (e.g., integrations, security, etc.). I have an AWS tag called team with the same value, and a Kubernetes label organization/team with the same team name. I want to combine all these costs into one Virtual Tag. Write me a Terraform script to do this.
You:@Vantage can you create a report for me in the Infra folder (fldr_abc123def4567890) that shows me AWS EC2 box usage for October 2025?The Agent:Cost Report Created: AWS EC2 Usage (October 2025)Your report is ready in the Infra folder and focuses on AWS EC2 instance (compute) usage for October 2025.• Direct link: https://console.vantage.sh/go/rprt_xyz789abc123def4Report Summary:- **Title**: AWS EC2 Usage - October 2025- **Folder**: Infra (fldr_abc123def4567890)- **Filter**: (costs.provider = 'aws' AND costs.service = 'Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Compute')- **Date Range**: 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31- **Aggregate By**: usage- **Workspace**: Production (wrkspc_def456ghi789jkl0)Notes:• This targets the EC2 compute service: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Compute, which matches "EC2 box usage."• It excludes EC2-related "other" costs (like EBS, NAT, data transfer). If you want those included, I can broaden the filter.Want any tweaks?• Groupings: Add by account_id, region, or instance type (if tagged).• Compare periods: Keep or remove previous-period comparison.• Scope: Restrict to specific AWS accounts or regions.
The FinOps Agent needs to know which data to use. Vantage customers often have multiple workspaces, multiple cloud providers, and different access levels. Providing scope upfront can help to eliminate back-and-forth questions.
The agent automatically selects a workspace for your queries if you don’t specify one. Understanding this process helps you know what data you’re viewing.
Workspaces in Vantage separate your provider integrations into distinct cost views. Different integrations can be associated with different workspaces, so the workspace you query determines which cost data is available. Learn more about workspaces.
The Agent chooses a workspace in this order:
If you specify one. If you mention a workspace name or token in your prompt, that workspace is used.
Your last used workspace. If you’ve used a workspace before, the Agent remembers and uses that one.
If you only have one workspace. If your account has just one workspace, that’s automatically used.
Show me spend for the last 30 days.
Example agent response
Last 30 Days Spend• Workspace: Infra• Date range: 2025-10-14 to 2025-11-13• Total spend: $253,264.53 USDBreakdown by Provider• AWS: $215,235.88• GCP: $1,497.95• Kubernetes: $36,530.70Note: Monthly rows are prorated to the exact date range.Would you like this broken down by service or account, or run for a different workspace?
The agent used the default workspace (Infra). For more specific analysis, scope the prompt explicitly:
Show me AWS EC2 costs for the last 30 days in the Production workspace.
When you create Vantage resources, like reports, you can specify which folder to place them in by providing the folder URL or token (found at the end of the URL).
Cost Report Created: AWS RDS (August 2025)Your report is ready. You can open it here:• Report link: https://console.vantage.sh/go/rprt_xyz789abc123def4• Folder: https://console.vantage.sh/reporting/fldr_abc123def4567890Report Details• Title: AWS RDS Costs - August 2025• Scope: ``costs.provider = 'aws'`` and ``costs.service = 'Amazon Relational Database Service'``• Date range: 2025-08-01 to 2025-08-31• Chart type: Line• Aggregation: Cost over Date• Settings: • Discounts: Included • Tax: Included • Amortized: Yes • Credits/Refunds: Excluded • Previous period comparison: EnabledNext Steps (Optional)• Add groupings for more detail (e.g., ``region``, ``account_id``).• Attach budgets or forecasts to track RDS spend trends beyond August.• Create a dashboard widget if you want this visible on a central dashboard.If you’d like, I can:• Add groupings to this report,• Create a matching budget,• Or generate a forecast for upcoming months.
Always include time ranges to avoid ambiguity about which period you’re analyzing.
Provide a breakdown of costs by service for Datadog from July 1 to July 31, 2025.
Datadog Cost Breakdown — Management Workspace (2025-07-01 to 2025-07-31)Workspace: ManagementProvider: DatadogPeriod: 2025-07-01 to 2025-07-31Summary• Total Datadog spend: $52,847.30• Costs are aggregated monthly and include discounts and tax, with amortization enabled (credits/refunds excluded by default).Costs by Service| Service | Cost (USD) | Share of Total ||---------|------------|----------------|| APM | $21,852.18 | 41.35% || Infrastructure Monitoring | $15,980.42 | 30.24% || Containers | $5,696.94 | 10.78% || Log Management | $4,835.53 | 9.15% || CI Visibility | $2,737.49 | 5.18% || Database Monitoring | $835.00 | 1.58% || Real User Monitoring | $581.32 | 1.10% || Synthetic Monitoring | $174.40 | 0.33% || Serverless Monitoring | $154.02 | 0.28% |Notes• Monthly aggregation: Each record represents July 2025; the ``accrued_at`` date refers to the first day of the month.• Defaults used: include_discounts = true, include_tax = true, amortize = true, include_credits = false, include_refunds = false.If you want these toggled (e.g., exclude tax or include credits), let me know and I'll rerun the breakdown.
You can reference existing reports by their token or link, and the agent will analyze them.
In this report rprt_xyz987abc456def789, what was my biggest change in cost from September 2025 to October 2025, and what resources contributed to this?
Biggest Month-over-Month Change (Sep 2025 → Oct 2025)• Largest change: AWS AmazonS3 costs decreased by $87,542.31 (from $245,892.67 in Sep to $158,350.36 in Oct).• Report link: https://console.vantage.sh/go/rprt_xyz987abc456def789What resources contributed to this change?The decrease was concentrated in a single AWS account. Bucket-level resource IDs are not present in this report's data, but the account-level breakdown clearly shows where the change occurred.AWS AmazonS3 by account:| AWS Account ID | Sep 2025 | Oct 2025 | Change ||----------------|----------|----------|--------|| 987654321098 | $238,450.12 | $152,180.45 | **-$86,269.67** || 555444333222 | $5,892.34 | $4,567.89 | -$1,324.45 || 111222333444 | $1,550.21 | $1,602.02 | +$51.81 |• Conclusion: ~98.5% of the S3 decrease was driven by account 987654321098.Other notable month-over-month movements (context):• Increases: - AWS AmazonEC2: +$42,156.78 - AWS RDS: +$28,934.12 - Azure Load Balancer: +$15,678.45• Decreases: - Snowflake Data Cloud: -$18,234.56 - Datadog APM: -$12,567.89Want bucket-level detail? I can try to pull the top S3 buckets by month-over-month change, but the current report data doesn't expose bucket-level resource IDs. If you'd like, I can run a workspace-level query to identify the specific buckets contributing to this change.
A great prompt usually combines all three building blocks in a single sentence: what you want, what data to use, and how to format the answer. You don’t need a special syntax; plain English works.A good prompt covers, in order:
Intent — what you want the agent to do (a question or an action).
Scope — the workspace, providers, services, accounts, regions, tags, time range, and groupings to apply.
Direction — how you want the answer formatted (summary, table, checklist, code block) and any notes or callouts.
Here’s a fully-formed prompt that uses all three:
In the Production workspace, show AWS EC2 and S3 spend for the last 30 days, grouped by service and account ID. Present the result as a table and identify the top 5 cost drivers.
How that maps to the building blocks:
Intent: “Show AWS EC2 and S3 spend” (a question).
Scope: “In the Production workspace”, “AWS EC2 and S3”, “for the last 30 days”, “grouped by service and account ID”.
Direction: “as a table”, “identify the top 5 cost drivers”.
Copy and customize these prompts for common FinOps tasks. Each one follows the Intent, Scope, and Direction framework. Replace the values in brackets (such as [workspace] or [time period]) with your own.
Investigate cost spikes
Identify what caused unexpected cost increases.
What caused the cost spike in the [workspace] workspace [time period]?
Analyze trends
Track spending patterns and identify trends over time.
Show the [time period] trend for [service] spend in [workspace].
Track Budgets
Compare actual spending against Budgets and forecasts.
List all Budgets in the [workspace] workspace and compare against actuals.
Detect anomalies
Find unusual spending patterns that may indicate issues.
Find anomalies for the last [days] days in the [workspace] workspace.
Investigate cost anomalies
When you receive a Cost Anomaly Alert in Slack, click the Investigate Anomaly button to start an automated investigation. You can also ask the agent directly—in either Slack or the console. The agent investigates each anomaly, queries daily costs around the spike, identifies attributed resources, and presents correlations across anomalies.
Investigate the anomalies on my [report name] report.
AWS Cost Anomaly InvestigationReport: AWS Costs (filter: all AWS costs)Detected: January 16, 2026 | 3 anomalies with a combined increase of ~$156.421. Amazon S3 — API Requests (+$72.18) — Largest Spike| Field | Value ||-----------------|-------------------------------------------|| Category | API Request || Occurred | Jan 10, 2026 || Amount | $198.34 || Previous Day | $157.20 (+26.2%) || 7-Day Average | $126.16 (+57.2% above baseline) |Resource: my-data-lake-bucket-441298320517 (S3 bucket, us-west-2, account 441298320517)Daily API Request Trend:| Date | S3 API Request Cost ||--------|---------------------|| Jan 7 | $124.30 || Jan 8 | $131.05 || Jan 9 | $157.20 || Jan 10 | $198.34 ⬆️ anomaly || Jan 11 | $210.77 || Jan 12 | $187.63 || Jan 13 | $156.41 |Analysis: The spike on Jan 10 was notable, but costs continued to climb throughJan 11 ($210.77). This S3 bucket is used for data lake storage. The sustainedincrease in API requests suggests either new ETL jobs querying the bucket,increased data delivery frequency, or a change in access patterns.2. Amazon GuardDuty (+$51.83)| Field | Value ||-----------------|-------------------------------------------|| Category | GuardDuty || Occurred | Jan 12, 2026 || Amount | $84.57 || Previous Day | $33.19 (+154.8%) || 7-Day Average | $32.74 (+158.3% above baseline) |Daily Trend:| Date | GuardDuty Cost ||--------|----------------|| Jan 7 | $31.42 || Jan 8 | $32.18 || Jan 9 | $33.70 || Jan 10 | $34.25 || Jan 11 | $33.19 || Jan 12 | $84.57 ⬆️ anomaly || Jan 13 | $7.82 (partial day)|Analysis: GuardDuty costs more than doubled on Jan 12. This typically indicatesa surge in analyzed events — possibly increased VPC Flow Logs, DNS logs, orCloudTrail events being scanned. This could correlate with the S3 API requestspike generating more CloudTrail events.3. Amazon CloudWatch — API Requests (+$32.41)| Field | Value ||-----------------|-------------------------------------------|| Category | API Request || Occurred | Jan 11, 2026 || Amount | $67.92 || Previous Day | $38.14 (+78.1%) || 7-Day Average | $35.51 (+91.3% above baseline) |Daily API Request Trend:| Date | CloudWatch API Cost ||--------|---------------------|| Jan 7 | $35.63 || Jan 8 | $34.29 || Jan 9 | $36.87 || Jan 10 | $38.14 || Jan 11 | $67.92 ⬆️ anomaly || Jan 12 | $52.40 || Jan 13 | $48.71 |Analysis: CloudWatch API costs jumped 78% on Jan 11 and remain elevated(~$48-52/day vs. the ~$35 baseline). This suggests a new monitoring configurationor increased GetMetricData calls.Key Correlations & RecommendationsS3 + GuardDuty + CloudWatch may be linked: The surge in S3 API requestsgenerates more CloudTrail events, which GuardDuty analyzes and CloudWatchmonitors. Investigate what is driving the increased S3 API activity on thedata lake bucket — this could be the root cause of multiple anomalies.Action items:• Investigate S3 API surge — this is the largest and still-growing cost. Check CloudTrail for unusual access patterns on the data lake bucket.• Review CloudWatch API usage — the elevated baseline suggests a permanent config change. Audit recent monitoring changes.Console links:• Cost Report: https://console.vantage.sh/go/rprt_abc123def456
Tag-based analysis
Group and filter costs using tags for allocation and showback.
Show cost grouped by tag:[key] for [time period] in [workspace].
Report analysis
Deep-dive into existing reports to understand cost changes.
In this report [report_token or link], what was my biggest change in cost from [period 1] to [period 2], and what resources contributed to this?
Because the FinOps Agent relies on an LLM, responses are not always deterministic. The same prompt may return slightly different answers, and results depend heavily on the context you provide. Understanding how responses work helps you verify results and get the most out of the agent when answers look unexpected.
The FinOps Agent uses Vantage Query Language (VQL) to query your cost data. VQL is a SQL-like language for filtering cloud cost data across providers. When the agent answers a cost question, it generates VQL behind the scenes to fetch the data.
You can verify agent responses using the following methods:
Compare against Cost Reports. Use your existing Cost Reports as a source of truth. For example, if you ask about EC2 spend last month, compare the answer against your saved report for that timeframe.
Request the VQL query. Ask the agent to show you the VQL it used. Add “Show the VQL you used” to your prompt or ask in a follow-up message. Review the VQL to understand what data the agent accessed and confirm the filters and groupings align with your intent.
Cross-reference between surfaces. If you receive an unexpected answer in Slack, try the same prompt in the console (or vice versa). Conversations are independent, so you can use one as a sanity check for the other.
Understanding the agent’s limitations helps you set appropriate expectations and get the most out of your interactions.
No automatic web browsing
The agent doesn’t browse the internet unless a tool explicitly provides that information. It can’t fetch live pricing from websites unless you provide it or a tool returns it.
Tooling and account access
The agent can only access what the Vantage MCP and Vantage Docs MCP tools return, plus anything you share directly in the conversation. All access is scoped to your RBAC permissions.
No system control
The agent can’t run commands, deploy code, or change infrastructure outside Vantage. It can suggest provider commands, but you must run them yourself. Cost remediation actions are taken only via the Slack approval workflow.
No console-based remediation actions
The console agent can describe and explain cost recommendations but cannot purchase Savings Plans, RIs, or rightsize resources. Remediation actions and approvals run through Slack today.
Misinterpretation
The agent may misinterpret ambiguous requests. Be specific—provide workspace, time range, and the exact resource or service whenever possible.
Context limits
The agent only sees the current chat context. It doesn’t carry context between Slack and the console, and it doesn’t remember previous Slack threads or console conversations unless they’re part of the current thread.
File support
The agent currently accepts text-based files, including CSVs. Image analysis and other file formats are not supported today; additional formats are planned.
No sensitive data inference
The agent doesn’t access personal data unless you provide it explicitly. It can’t read your emails, tickets, or external dashboards without you pasting content or granting access via tools.
