Bicep Cost Lens

Bicep Cost Lens

See what your Bicep costs — before you deploy.

Free. No account. No backend. No telemetry.

📦 Install

VS Code extension

From the Marketplace (once published): open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X), search "Bicep Cost Lens", click Install.

From a .vsix (right now): download the latest .vsix from GitHub Releases, then either

code --install-extension bicep-cost-lens-0.1.0.vsix

or in VS Code: Extensions view → ··· menu → Install from VSIX… → pick the file.

Requirements: VS Code 1.85+, the Bicep extension for language support (Cost Lens adds the cost layer on top).

CLI (for pipelines — zero install)

The CLI is a single bundled JavaScript file with zero dependencies. No npm install, no checkout of this repo — just Node 20+ and network access to prices.azure.com:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gritfytechnologies/bicep-cost-lens/v0.1.0/dist/cli.js \
  -o cost-lens.js
node cost-lens.js --budget 500 --currency CAD infra/main.bicep

🖱️ Using it in VS Code

Hover any Bicep resource. Open a .bicep file, hover a resource line — a card shows the estimated monthly cost range for your region and currency:

💰 Bicep Cost Lens

vm (Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines)

Estimated monthly cost: $73.00 – $81.50 CAD

730-hour month · 4 price record(s)

Directional estimate — list prices only, no EA/MCA discounts, reservations, or hybrid benefit. Verify with the Azure Pricing Calculator before budgeting.
Estimate the whole file. Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) → Cost Lens: Estimate File Cost — totals every priced resource into the Output panel.

Tune it. Settings (bicepCostLens.*):

Setting	Default	Meaning
`bicepCostLens.region`	`canadacentral`	Azure region for price lookups
`bicepCostLens.currency`	`CAD`	ISO currency code
`bicepCostLens.auditUrl`	`https://gritfytechnologies.com`	Destination of the FinOps audit CTA

Working offline? Prices are cached for 24 hours. If Azure's price list is unreachable you'll get last-known prices labeled as cached — or a plain-language message. Never a silent wrong number.

🖥️ Using the CLI

node cost-lens.js [options] <file.bicep>

  --budget <n>       Monthly budget in your currency. Exits 2 when the
                     estimate exceeds it — that's your pipeline gate.
  --currency <code>  ISO code, default CAD.
  --region <name>    Azure region, default canadacentral.
  --format <fmt>     markdown (default) or json.

Exit codes: 0 under budget · 1 usage/IO error · 2 over budget.

Example output:

$ node cost-lens.js --budget 500 --currency CAD infra/main.bicep

## 💰 Bicep Cost Lens — `infra/main.bicep`

| Resource | Type | Estimated monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| `vm` | `Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines` | **$73.00 – $81.50 CAD** |
| `storage` | `Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts` | **$18.20 – $24.60 CAD** |

**Total (directional):** **$91.20 – $106.10 CAD**
**Budget:** $500.00 CAD → ✅ under budget

🚦 Cost gate in your pipeline

Wire the CLI into Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions so every Bicep change is checked against the team's allocated budget before it deploys. Over budget → the build fails (or routes to an approver) instead of the invoice surprising you.

GitHub Actions — PR gate with estimate comment

# .github/workflows/cost-gate.yml
name: Cost gate
on:
  pull_request:
    paths: ['infra/**/*.bicep']

jobs:
  estimate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Estimate Bicep cost vs budget
        id: cost
        run: |
          curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gritfytechnologies/bicep-cost-lens/v0.1.0/dist/cli.js \
            -o /tmp/cost-lens.js
          node /tmp/cost-lens.js --budget 500 --currency CAD infra/main.bicep | tee estimate.md
          echo "exit_code=$?" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"

      - name: Comment estimate on the PR
        uses: actions/github-script@v7
        with:
          script: |
            const fs = require('fs');
            await github.rest.issues.createComment({
              ...context.repo,
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
              body: fs.readFileSync('estimate.md', 'utf8'),
            });

      - name: Fail when over budget
        if: steps.cost.outputs.exit_code == '2'
        run: |
          echo "::error::Bicep estimate exceeds the $500 CAD budget — FinOps approval required."
          exit 1

Azure DevOps — pre-deployment budget gate

# azure-pipelines.yml
trigger:
  paths:
    include: ['infra/*.bicep']

variables:
  monthlyBudget: 500        # <-- the team's allocated budget, in CAD
  azureRegion: canadacentral

stages:
  - stage: CostGate
    displayName: 'Budget gate'
    jobs:
      - job: Estimate
        pool: { vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest' }
        steps:
          - task: NodeTool@0
            inputs: { versionSpec: '20.x' }
          - script: |
              curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gritfytechnologies/bicep-cost-lens/v0.1.0/dist/cli.js \
                -o $(Agent.TempDirectory)/cost-lens.js
              node $(Agent.TempDirectory)/cost-lens.js \
                --budget $(monthlyBudget) --currency CAD --region $(azureRegion) \
                $(Build.SourcesDirectory)/infra/main.bicep
            displayName: 'Bicep Cost Lens — budget gate'

  - stage: Deploy
    dependsOn: CostGate
    condition: succeeded()     # over budget? this stage never runs
    jobs:
      - deployment: Production
        environment: 'prod'    # or route to a manual approval for over-budget
        strategy:
          runOnce:
            deploy:
              steps:
                - script: echo "Deploying — budget check passed."

Softer variant: instead of failing, publish the markdown as a pipeline artifact or post it to Teams/Slack, and add a Manual Validation task only when the CLI exits 2. Same signal, human in the loop.

🎬 Real-world scenarios

1. The Friday-afternoon VM

A developer adds a Standard_D2s_v3 VM to dev.bicep at 4:55 p.m. Hover shows ~$73–210 CAD/month — more than the whole dev resource group. They switch to a Standard_B2s for dev before committing. Cost avoided, zero meetings.

2. The PR that blew the budget

A PR adds an S1 Azure SQL database to the shared main.bicep. The GitHub Actions cost gate runs cost-lens.js --budget 500, the estimate comes back at $640 CAD, CI fails, and the estimate lands as a PR comment. The team discusses it in the PR — downgrade to S0, or raise the budget with eyes open — instead of discovering it on the invoice.

3. The ADO release gate

The platform team sets monthlyBudget: 2000 in azure-pipelines.yml. Every Bicep change is estimated in the CostGate stage; the Deploy stage only runs on success. When a change pushes the estimate to $2,340, deployment pauses and FinOps gets an approval request with the exact numbers attached. Budget enforcement moves left — from the invoice to the pipeline.

4. The FinOps Friday review

Run Cost Lens: Estimate File Cost across each module once a week. Totals drift up over time as SKUs creep; the file total makes the drift visible in seconds, per module, before it compounds.

⚙️ How it works

How Bicep Cost Lens works

Parse — reads resource declarations (type, API version, SKU, VM size, location) out of your .bicep files. No language server required.
Map — matches each resource type to its Azure Retail Prices serviceName (12 resource types covered and growing).
Price — queries Microsoft's public price list filtered to your region and currency, cached for 24 hours.
Estimate — scales hourly meters to a 730-hour month; usage-based meters (per-GB, per-transaction) are shown per-unit because they can't be scaled without your usage data.
Label — every number is marked directional, with the caveats attached. No accuracy theater.

🛡️ The honest caveats (read these)

Every estimate is directional because it is:

List prices only — no EA/MCA discounts, reservations, hybrid benefit, or spot pricing.
730-hour month for hourly meters; usage-based meters shown per-unit.
Excludes data transfer, support plans, and anything the Retail Prices API doesn't cover.

Verify with the Azure Pricing Calculator before budgeting. If an estimate ever looks wrong, open an issue.

🧊 Why zero dependencies

This extension ships with zero runtime dependencies (bundled with esbuild). Fewer dependencies = smaller attack surface, faster activation, and nothing to go stale or get supply-chain hijacked. The only network call is to Microsoft's public Retail Prices API — which needs no API key.

🧑‍💻 Development

npm install
npm run build      # dist/extension.js + dist/cli.js
npm run watch      # rebuild on change
npm run lint       # eslint (CI-enforced)
npm run typecheck  # tsc --noEmit
npm run test       # vitest with coverage (≥80% gate on pure logic)
npm run test:e2e   # headless VS Code run of every command
npm run package    # vsce package -> .vsix (no publish)

CI runs lint + typecheck + unit tests + packaging on every push, and headless e2e under xvfb.

🚀 Release process

Per the Gritfy extension standards: unit + e2e green → manual QA checklist signed → pre-release soak 7 days → promote to release. CHANGELOG.md is updated on every release.

📄 License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Gritfy Technologies Inc.

Bicep Cost Lens

📦 Install

VS Code extension

CLI (for pipelines — zero install)

🖱️ Using it in VS Code

💰 Bicep Cost Lens

🖥️ Using the CLI

🚦 Cost gate in your pipeline

GitHub Actions — PR gate with estimate comment

Azure DevOps — pre-deployment budget gate

🎬 Real-world scenarios

1. The Friday-afternoon VM

2. The PR that blew the budget

3. The ADO release gate

4. The FinOps Friday review

⚙️ How it works

🛡️ The honest caveats (read these)

🧊 Why zero dependencies

🧑‍💻 Development

🚀 Release process

📄 License