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Example Queries

This guide shows effective ways to query your cloud data through natural conversation. You don't need to use exact phrasing—these examples demonstrate patterns that work well.

Cost Analysis​

Understanding Current Spend​

"What's my total spend across all subscriptions this month?"

"Show me a breakdown of costs by resource group for subscription prod-001"

"Which services are costing the most in my analytics subscription?"

Comparing Periods​

"How does this month's spend compare to last month?"

"What changed in my storage costs between October and November?"

"Show me the cost trend for my production subscription over the last 6 months"

Identifying Anomalies​

"Are there any unusual cost spikes I should know about?"

"What's driving the 40% increase in my compute costs?"

"Which resources have the biggest cost changes this week?"

Drilling Into Details​

"Break down the costs for resource group rg-data-platform by service type"

"What are the individual line items for my SQL database costs?"

"Show me the daily cost pattern for my storage accounts"

Resource Management​

Browsing Resources​

"List all VMs in my production subscription"

"What resources are in the analytics resource group?"

"Show me all storage accounts across my subscriptions"

Getting Resource Details​

"What's the configuration of my SQL database server-prod-01?"

"Show me the details for the VM named web-server-03"

"What tags are applied to resources in the data-platform resource group?"

Service Retirements​

"Are there any Azure service retirements affecting my subscriptions?"

"What deprecated services am I still using?"

"Show me upcoming retirements I need to plan for"

Working with Recommendations​

Finding Opportunities​

"What are my top 5 cost-saving opportunities?"

"Show me recommendations for my production subscription"

"What security improvements should I prioritize?"

"Are there any high-impact recommendations I'm missing?"

Filtering Recommendations​

"Show me only recommendations that save more than $100/month"

"What recommendations exist for my SQL databases?"

"List dismissed recommendations for the analytics team"

Acting on Recommendations​

"Dismiss the VM rightsizing recommendation for batch - server—we need the capacity for month-end processing"

"Mark the reserved instance recommendations for subscription prod-001 as implemented"

"Prioritize the security recommendations as high priority"

Sharing with Your Team​

"Share the storage optimization recommendations to #infrastructure on Slack"

"Email the cost-saving summary to [email protected]"

"Create a Jira ticket for the networking security recommendations"

"Post the top 3 recommendations to the DevOps Teams channel"

Security Posture​

Secure Score​

"What's my current secure score?"

"How has my secure score changed over the last month?"

"Which subscriptions have the lowest secure scores?"

Security Recommendations​

"Show me high-priority security recommendations"

"What security issues affect my production environment?"

"List recommendations related to network security"

Planning & Governance​

Budgets & Forecasting​

"What is my forecasted spend for the current month?"

"Am I projected to go over budget on subscription prod-001?"

"Show me the budget utilization for my marketing resource group."

Tagging & Compliance​

"List resources that are missing the 'Owner' tag."

"Show me all resources tagged 'Environment: Dev' that cost more than $10/month."

"Check the configuration of 'app-service-01'—is HTTPS only enabled?"

Multi-Subscription Queries​

Cross-Subscription Analysis​

"Compare costs across all my subscriptions"

"Which subscription has the most recommendations?"

"Show me resource counts by subscription"

Company-Wide Views​

"What's the total spend for Acme Corp across all subscriptions?"

"List all subscriptions I have access to"

"Show me the highest-cost resources company-wide"

Administrative Tasks​

User Management​

"Who has access to the production company?"

"What role does [email protected] have?"

"List users who haven't logged in recently"

API Key Management​

"Show me the API keys for my company"

"When was the last time each API key was used?"

Tips for Effective Queries​

Be Specific When You Can​

Instead of: "Show me costs"

Try: "Show me compute costs for subscription prod-001 over the last 30 days"

Provide Context for Actions​

Instead of: "Dismiss the recommendation"

Try: "Dismiss the VM rightsizing recommendation for batch - server—we need the extra capacity for quarterly reports"

Ask Follow-Up Questions​

Start broad, then narrow down:

  1. "What are my biggest cost drivers?"
  2. "Break down the storage costs by storage account"
  3. "What recommendations exist for storage-account-03?"

Use Natural Timeframes​

The system understands common time expressions:

  • "this month" / "last month"
  • "the last 30 days"
  • "this week"
  • "since January"
  • "Q3 2024"

Troubleshooting Queries​

If You Get Incomplete Results​

Try being more specific about what you're looking for:

"Show me the cost breakdown for subscription prod-001 by service, including the actual dollar amounts"

If the AI Seems Confused​

Break complex questions into steps:

Instead of: "Show me which recommendations I should implement first based on ROI and effort"

Try:

  1. "What are the cost-saving recommendations for prod-001?"
  2. "Which of those save more than $50/month?"
  3. "What's the effort level for each?"

If You Need Historical Data​

Specify the time range explicitly:

"Show me the subscription metrics history for the last 12 months"

What's Not Supported​

The MCP integration is read-heavy by design. Some operations require the Spotto Portal:

  • Creating or deleting Azure resources
  • Modifying Azure configurations
  • Detailed invoice downloads
  • Complex dashboard customization

For these tasks, the AI can often point you to the right place in the portal.