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Costs

Where to find it: Workspace → Operation → Costs (/operation/costs). This is where you set up recurring, automated reviews of your cloud spend instead of checking your bill by hand. You schedule a check with a prompt, and on a repeating basis an agent inspects your connected cloud account and hands back a written report flagging anomalies, waste, and unexpected growth.

Costs and Security share the same screens and components; only the wording and presets differ. This guide covers Costs.

Permissions. Creating, pausing or enabling, deleting, or running a check requires both monitoring:manage and cost:read, and the project must not be read-only. Without those, the page is read-only: you can still see schedules and open reports, but the controls below are hidden.

The page header​

At the top of the page:

  • New schedule: visible only if you can manage checks. Toggles the schedule form open and closed (see below).
  • Rules: opens the Cost rules dialog (see below). Disabled until a project is selected.
  • Refresh (circular arrow icon): re-fetches the schedule list. Spins while a refresh is in flight.

While the page is first loading, it shows a centered spinner instead of the header and list.

How do I create a schedule?​

Click New schedule to open the "New scheduled cost check" form.

  • Title (required): free text, for example "Prod API weekly review".
  • Prompt for the agent (required): the instruction the agent will run on each check.
    • Above the text box, preset buttons let you start from a template: Monthly AWS costs ("Perform an AWS cost analysis of my account for the current month."), Weekly AWS costs ("Perform an AWS cost analysis of my account for the current week (starting on Sunday)."), and Custom. Clicking a preset fills the text box with its text and highlights that button. Editing the text box directly switches the selection to Custom.
    • The form opens with Monthly AWS costs selected by default.
  • Repeat (required): a dropdown with Daily or Weekly. Defaults to Weekly.
  • Time (UTC): a 24-hour time picker (minute precision), stored and run in UTC. Helper text under it reads "24-hour UTC — e.g. Friday 22:41". Defaults to 08:00.
  • On: only shown when Repeat is Weekly. A row of day buttons (Mon–Sun) to pick the weekday. Defaults to Friday. Required when Repeat is Weekly.
  • Preview: a read-only summary box below the fields, updating live as you change the form: a line like "Every Friday at 8:00 AM UTC", plus "Next run: Friday, Aug 21, 8:00 AM UTC".
  • Post results to communication channels: a switch, on by default. Its description: "Scheduled runs open or continue their linked Slack and Teams thread. Run now always stays inside ACE."

Buttons at the bottom of the form:

  • Save schedule: validates the form (Title, Prompt, and Time are required; a weekday is required if Repeat is Weekly, and errors appear under each invalid field) and creates the schedule, enabled, for its next scheduled run. While saving it reads "Saving…". On success the form closes and resets, and a green "Schedule added" message flashes for about 2 seconds.
  • Save & run now: same validation and creation, but also immediately triggers a run after saving. While in progress it reads "Running…". On success the form closes and a "Run queued — open the schedule to view" note flashes for about 2.5 seconds. If triggering the run fails (for example, no credits, a past-due subscription, a project budget limit, or a temporary service outage), a red "Failed" banner appears at the top of the page with a specific message and dismisses on its own after 10 seconds (or click its X). The schedule itself is still saved even if the run trigger fails.
  • Cancel (top-right of the form): closes the form and discards it without saving, clearing any validation errors.

The scheduled checks list​

Below the form, every saved schedule for this project appears as a card under Scheduled checks, with a count badge. If there are none yet: "No schedules yet. Fill the form above and save."

Each card shows:

  • A status dot (green if enabled, gray if paused), and a Paused badge next to the title when disabled.
  • The schedule's title.
  • Its recurrence in plain language (for example "Every Friday at 8:00 AM UTC") and, if enabled, Next: <date/time>.
  • Run count ("N runs"), and either Last run <time ago> or "No runs yet" if it has never run.
  • Whether results post out: "Posts results" or, if the switch is off, "Results stay in ACE".

Clicking anywhere on the card body (not the buttons) expands or collapses it in place, showing its three most recent runs. Each recent run row shows a spinner and "Running…" if still active, otherwise a green dot, its title (or "Scheduled check completed" if it has none), and how long ago it ran; click a row to open that run's report. While runs are loading you will see "Loading runs…"; if there are none yet, "No runs yet." Below the recent runs, View full history → opens the schedule's full run-history page.

If you can manage checks, each card also has:

  • Pause / Enable: toggles whether the schedule is active, without opening or closing the card.
  • A trash-can icon, Delete scheduled check. It opens a confirmation dialog: "Delete schedule?" with the text Delete "<title>"? Runs for this schedule will be removed. Cancel closes it without deleting; Delete (destructive styling) proceeds, showing a spinner while deleting, then a green "Deleted." confirmation with a Done button. If deletion fails, the dialog shows the error and a Retry button instead.

The chevron icon on the far right also expands or collapses the card, same as clicking the card body.

What do the Rules do?​

Clicking Rules in the page header opens the Cost rules dialog, a bulk view of every schedule's on/off state and channel-posting setting in one place.

  • An info note: "Posting requires a project communication channel." with a Manage channels → link to /integrations/communication.
  • If there are no schedules: "Create a schedule to define cost rules."
  • Otherwise, one row per schedule, showing its title and recurrence summary, with two switches:
    • Enabled: "Allow the scheduler to create future runs."
    • Post results to communication channels: "Open or continue this run's Slack or Teams thread."
  • A closing note: "There is no Automatic analysis switch: executing the analysis is the purpose of the schedule."

If you can manage checks: Cancel discards any changes and closes the dialog; Save rules saves every schedule's switches at once (shows a spinner while saving, and an error message below the list if saving fails). If you cannot manage checks, the switches are disabled and the only button is Close.

Next​

See Schedule history and reports for the full run-history screen, running a report, and discussing it in chat.

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