What does this skill do, and when should you use it?
This skill turns an agent into a cloud solution architect aligned with Azure Architecture Center guidance. It covers ten Azure application design principles, six architecture styles, 44 cloud design patterns, and decision frameworks for compute, storage, data, and messaging. It also addresses performance antipatterns, 99.99%+ SLO design, the five Well-Architected Framework pillars, and a structured architecture review workflow. It is suited to Azure architecture decisions and reviews, not resource deployment or infrastructure automation.
Maps functional and non-functional requirements to N-tier, Web-Queue-Worker, microservices, event-driven, big data, or big compute styles; selects design patterns for reliability, security, cost, operations, and performance concerns; compares Azure services for compute, storage, data, messaging, networking, AI, and containers; identifies performance antipatterns; and produces architecture recommendations, tradeoff analysis, WAF reviews, and ADR-oriented decision documentation through a seven-step review workflow.
- An architect comparing N-tier, microservices, and event-driven options for a traditional enterprise application can use it to assess fit and relevant Azure services.
- A development team designing a production system with high availability, multi-region deployment, or disaster recovery can use it to review redundancy, isolation, retry, and replication choices.
- A platform team choosing among App Service, Functions, Container Apps, AKS, Batch, and virtual machines for high-throughput or long-running workloads can use it to weigh hosting model, scaling, cost, and team skills.
- A technical lead conducting a Well-Architected Framework review can use it to document tradeoffs across reliability, security, cost optimization, operational excellence, and performance efficiency.
- A modernization team incrementally replacing a legacy system can use it to evaluate Strangler Fig, Anti-Corruption Layer, and message-decoupling patterns.
How do you install this skill?
- This is Azure-specific advisory material and should not replace validation of business requirements, compliance, cost, regional availability, and threat models.
- Input/output formats, failure feedback, and rollback procedures are not explicitly defined, so substantial human judgment and supplementation may be required.
- Versioning, changelog, and maintenance ownership are not documented; referenced guidance and Azure service recommendations should be rechecked before adoption.
Run npx skills add microsoft/skills in the project and select the required skill in the wizard. Skills are installed in the chosen agent directory, such as .github/skills/ for GitHub Copilot. The source also describes manual copying and symlinking, but it does not provide a standalone manual-install command for this skill.
tmp="$(mktemp -d)"
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/skills.git "$tmp"
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R "$tmp/.github/skills/cloud-solution-architect" ~/.claude/skills/
rm -rf "$tmp"Generated from the source repository and skill path; it copies only this skill's folder. If the author's install steps above differ, follow those first. To scope it to one project, replace ~/.claude/skills with that project's .claude/skills.
How do you use this skill?
Once installed, send your agent any of these to trigger it:
- Design a system for a 99.99% SLO with multi-region disaster recovery and asynchronous processing using Azure Architecture Center practices, then evaluate it against all five WAF pillars.
After installation, include the architecture goal and constraints in a design or review request, for example: “Design a system for a 99.99% SLO with multi-region disaster recovery and asynchronous processing using Azure Architecture Center practices, then evaluate it against all five WAF pillars.” The skill should guide style selection, technology choices, pattern selection, tradeoffs, and ADR structure. The source does not specify a separate trigger configuration for each agent.
What are this skill's strengths and limitations?
- Covers a complete workflow from requirements discovery through ADR documentation.
- Provides a structured reference of ten principles, six architecture styles, and 44 patterns.
- Connects technology selection with reliability, security, cost, operations, and performance.
- Includes cross-cutting guidance for high availability, performance, identity, monitoring, deployment, and testing.
- The repository is MIT-licensed and supports installing the broader collection through skills.sh.
- The guidance is Azure-focused and should not be treated as a direct AWS, Google Cloud, or multi-cloud guide.
- The skill provides analysis and documentation guidance; the supplied material does not show automatic deployment or cloud-resource validation.
- Detailed pattern, technology-choice, best-practice, and mission-critical guidance depends on referenced files whose contents are not included here.
- The README describes the repository as under active development, so the collection and its tests may continue to change.
How does this skill compare with similar options?
Side by side with related skills; every score comes from the same FSRS standard.
| Skill | FS score | Stars | Last updated | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Cloud Architect this page ✓ Microsoft · Official | 57 · Use with care | ★ 2.7k | 3mo ago | MIT |
| Overkill — Architecture Exploration Beyond the Pragmatic Answer | 60 · Recommended | ★ 33 | 5mo ago | MIT |
| Azure Event Grid for .NET ✓ Microsoft · Official | 53 · Use with care | ★ 2.7k | 3mo ago | MIT |
| Agents Best Practices | 61 · Recommended | ★ 2.4k | 12d ago | MIT |
| Codebase Design: Deep Module Design Guide | 57 · Use with care | ★ 291k | 16d ago | MIT |
How did FollowSkills review this skill?
The skill provides Azure architecture guidance rather than declaring tools, credential access, or external writes, so external-effect and privilege risk is low; it explicitly recommends Entra ID, managed identities, RBAC, Key Vault, and zero trust. Points are deducted because user confirmation, data-flow disclosure, sensitive-data handling boundaries, rollback procedures, and source-verification steps are not explicit.
The material is internally structured, with principles, styles, patterns, technology choices, and a review workflow that generally align; failure topics include retries, circuit breakers, dead letters, and graceful degradation. Static review did not execute key paths, and there is no committed test suite, input validation contract, output schema, or diagnostic failure examples, so the score remains below the static ceiling.
The name, description, and content clearly target Azure architecture design, review, and Well-Architected Framework scenarios, with reasonably precise trigger conditions. Points are deducted for limited non-fit boundaries, input/output contracts, and semantic false-trigger guidance; Chinese-language support is not documented. The supplied material is local documentation and does not inherently require an overseas runtime service, but Azure reachability and regional availability still require user validation.
The skill has an overview, progressive sections, tables, workflow guidance, an ADR template, and multiple reference files; the prompt also supplies MIT licensing and Microsoft organizational provenance. Points are deducted because versioning, changelog, maintenance owner, update path, installation notes, FAQs, and known limitations are not evident; reference completeness cannot be confirmed from the static material alone.
For users needing Azure principles, pattern catalogs, technology-selection prompts, and architecture-review checklists, the content is directly usable as a design aid and includes an ADR template. Static review cannot verify representative output correctness or completeness; it does not generate a concrete architecture, tradeoff record, or deployable artifact for a specific request, so the score is capped at 7.
The documents repeatedly attribute their content to the Azure Architecture Center and include local reference material, providing limited traceability. Points are deducted because there are no tests, CI coverage, independent reproduction records, or corroborating sources; this assessment only performed static reading and cannot verify key claims or examples.
Open a dimension to read why it scored that way
Evidence confidence：Low — Mostly static review, author material or a limited demo; useful for discovery, not high-risk decisions.
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