Cloud Solution Architect

Transform the agent into a Cloud Solution Architect following Azure Architecture Center best practices. Use when designing cloud architectures, reviewing system designs, selecting architecture styles, applying cloud design patterns, making technology choices, or conducting Well-Architected Framework reviews.

3,159 stars 358 forksSoftware DevelopmentOfficial

Install

skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more)

npx skills add microsoft/skills --skill cloud-solution-architect

Manual install

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/skills.git /tmp/skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/skills/.github/skills/cloud-solution-architect ~/.claude/skills/cloud-solution-architect

Personal skills live in ~/.claude/skills. Use .claude/skills in a project folder to share a skill with your team.

From the SKILL.md

# Cloud Solution Architect

## Overview

Design well-architected, production-grade cloud systems following Azure Architecture Center best practices. This skill provides:

- **10 design principles** for Azure applications
- **6 architecture styles** with selection guidance
- **44 cloud design patterns** mapped to WAF pillars
- **Technology choice frameworks** for compute, storage, data, messaging
- **Performance antipatterns** to avoid
- **Architecture review workflow** for systematic design validation

---

## Ten Design Principles for Azure Applications

| # | Principle | Key Tactics |
|---|-----------|-------------|
| 1 | **Design for self-healing** | Retry with backoff, circuit breaker, bulkhead isolation, health endpoint monitoring, graceful degradation |
| 2 | **Make all things redundant** | Eliminate single points of failure, use availability zones, deploy multi-region, replicate data |
| 3 | **Minimize coordination** | Decouple services, use async messaging, embrace eventual consistency, use domain events |
| 4 | **Design to scale out** | Horizontal scaling, autoscaling rules, stateless services, avoid session stickiness, partition workloads |
| 5 | **Partition around limits** | Data partitioning (shard/hash/range), respect compute & network limits, use CDNs for static content |
| 6 | **Design for operations** | Structured logging, distributed tracing, metrics & dashboards, runbook automation, infrastructure as code |

Read the full skill on GitHub

Details

Skill name: cloud-solution-architect
Repository: microsoft/skills
Path: .github/skills/cloud-solution-architect/SKILL.md
License: MIT
Repo updated: 30 October 2026
Listed in: heilcheng/awesome-agent-skills, skillmatic-ai/awesome-agent-skills

FAQ

What does the Cloud Solution Architect skill do?

How do I install the Cloud Solution Architect skill?

skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more): npx skills add microsoft/skills --skill cloud-solution-architect. Skills go in ~/.claude/skills (personal) or .claude/skills (project), and Claude loads them automatically when a task matches the description.

Is Cloud Solution Architect popular?

It lives in microsoft/skills, which has 3,159 GitHub stars and 358 forks, and is included in 2 curated skill lists.

Related skills

Azure AI Openai Dotnet

3.2k

microsoft/skills

Azure OpenAI SDK for .NET. Client library for Azure OpenAI and OpenAI services. Use for chat completions, embeddings, image generation, audio transcription, and assistants. Triggers: "Azure OpenAI", "AzureOpenAIClient", "ChatClient", "chat completions .NET", "GPT-4", "embeddings", "DALL-E", "Whisper", "OpenAI .NET".

AI, LLMs & AgentsIn 2 lists358

Azure AI Projects Py

3.2k

microsoft/skills

Build AI applications using the Azure AI Projects Python SDK (azure-ai-projects). Use when working with Foundry project clients, creating versioned agents with PromptAgentDefinition, running evaluations, managing connections/deployments/datasets/indexes, or using OpenAI-compatible clients. This is the high-level Foundry SDK - for low-level agent operations, use azure-ai-agents-python skill.

DevOps & CloudIn 2 lists358

Azure Identity Ts

3.2k

microsoft/skills

Authenticate to Azure services using Azure Identity library for JavaScript (@azure/identity). Use when configuring authentication with DefaultAzureCredential, managed identity, service principals, or interactive browser login.

DevOps & CloudIn 2 lists358

Copilot SDK

3.2k

microsoft/skills

Build applications powered by GitHub Copilot using the Copilot SDK. Use when creating programmatic integrations with Copilot across Node.js/TypeScript, Python, Go, or .NET. Covers session management, custom tools, streaming, hooks, MCP servers, BYOK providers, session persistence, custom agents, skills, and deployment patterns. Requires GitHub Copilot CLI installed and a GitHub Copilot subscription (unless using BYOK).

Software DevelopmentIn 2 lists358

Prioritization Advisor

7.8k

deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills

Choose a prioritization framework based on stage, team context, and stakeholder needs. Use when deciding between RICE, ICE, value/effort, or another scoring approach.

Software DevelopmentIn 3 lists940

N8n Code Javascript

6.6k

czlonkowski/n8n-skills

Write, review, or debug JavaScript in an n8n Code node. Use when a Code node is already in the workflow (editing it, fixing an error, choosing its mode, making it faster), or when a new one is justified: no native node fits (check the job-to-node table in using-n8n-mcp-skills first) and the job is on the closed list — loops or recursion no node expresses, state across runs, parsing no node handles, an allowlisted library, heavy all-items work, or one short node replacing 4+ glue nodes. Covers $input/$json/$node in code, this.helpers, Luxon, SplitInBatches loops, cross-iteration data, pairedIte

Software DevelopmentIn 1 list1.1k

Browse the most popular Claude skills, all software development skills, or write your own with the skills generator.