6 ms·

Show HN: An MCP server for understanding AWS costs

119 points by StratusBen 1y ago

Hey all - I work at Vantage, a FinOps platform. I know AI is peak hype right now. But it has definitely changed some of our dev workflows already. So we wanted to find a way to let our customers experiment with how they can use AI to make their cloud cost management work more productive. The MCP Server acts as a connector between LLMs (right now only Claude, Cursor support it but ChatGPT and Google Gemini coming soon) and your cost and usage data on Vantage which supports 20+ cloud infra providers including AWS, Datadog, Mongo, etc. (You have to have a Vantage account to use it since it's using the Vantage API) Video demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0VP2NlUvRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0VP2NlUvRU Repo: https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server It's really impressive how capable the latest-gen models are with an MCP server and an API. So far we have found it useful for: Ad-Hoc questions: "What's our non-prod cloud spend per engineer if we have 25 engineers" Action plans: "Find unallocated spend and look for clues how it should be tagged" Multi-tool workflows: "Find recent cost spikes that look like they could have come from eng changes and look for GitHub PR's merged around the same time" (using it in combination with the GitHub MCP) Thought I'd share, let me know if you have questions.

cat-whisperer 1y ago
This is going to different, as resources end up getting intertwined? or is there a way to standardize it?
andrenotgiant 1y ago
What's the difference between connecting an LLM to the data through Vantage vs directly to the AWS cost and usage API's?
- StratusBen 1y ago
  A few things. The biggest is giving the LLM context. On Vantage we have a primitive called a "Cost Report" that you can think of as being a set of filters. So you can create a cost report for a particular environment (production vs staging) or by service (front-end service vs back-end service). When you ask questions to the LLM, it will take the context into account versus just looking at all of the raw usage in your account. Most of our customers will create these filters, define reports, and organize them into folders and the LLM takes that context into account which can be helpful for asking questions. Lastly, we support more providers beyond AWS so if you wanted to merge in other associated costs like Datadog, Temporal, Clickhouse, etc.
mdaniel 1y ago
How does this work? https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server?tab=License-1-ov-file#non-commercial-use https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server?tab=License... That is extra weird when thinking about the audience who might be Vantage.sh users (and thus have the ability to create the read-only token mentioned elsewhere) but would almost certainly be using it from their workstation, in a commercial context. Sounds like you're trying to keep someone from selling your MCP toy and decided to be cute with the licensing text
- bluck 1y ago
  I'm just trying to understand licenses, but doesn't the choice of MIT contradict the inital "non-commercial purposes" as MIT says 'including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software' - Therefore, the non-commercial purposes is actually void and I can use the software to the limits of MIT defines? And because it is already MIT, they can relicense only future software but not this piece anymore?
  - skwashd 1y ago
    IANAL but that is my understanding. I created an issue to get some clarification - https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server/issues/31 https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server/issues/31
    - skwashd 1y ago
      The issue was initially closed with the following comment: > Hey Dave, it is as it is stated. The MCP is published with dual licenses depending on your intent. > https://fossa.com/blog/dual-licensing-models-explained/ https://fossa.com/blog/dual-licensing-models-explained/ After further discussion on the ticket the license is now just MIT.
  - ddingus 1y ago
    You have a couple problems that I can see: One is the MIT license does not prohibit selling. And wrapping it in a "for non-commercial uses" clause creates a contradiction difficult, if not impossible to enforce.
ponywombat 1y ago
AWS have also made their own cost analysis MCP server https://github.com/awslabs/mcp/tree/main/src/cost-analysis-mcp-server https://github.com/awslabs/mcp/tree/main/src/cost-analysis-m...
- neuroelectron 1y ago
  What a great solution. They can leverage this to avoid liability for their own price quotes and solutions while simultaneously adding another layer of vender lock-in. synergy
  - cowsandmilk 1y ago
    How does this avoid liability for anything?
    - mcintyre1994 1y ago
      I don't think anyone's really stated this outright, but large companies must believe they're not liable for anything their models/AI products are producing. That must be the case for their business model to work.
    - neuroelectron 1y ago
      A better question is how can they be held liable at all.
_pdp_ 1y ago
On a related note, I'm not sure when it became "ok" to leave production credentials scattered across your system in configuration files. So many MCP server examples encourage this pattern, and inevitably, it's going to cause trouble at some point.
- Game_Ender 1y ago
  What is your preferred way to manage them?
  - ivanvanderbyl 1y ago
    1Password’s CLI op does a reasonably good job of this
  - devenjarvis 1y ago
    The 1pass CLI is great! However if you aren’t using 1password as your secrets vault, I’m building an open source, vault-agnostic alternative called RunSecret (https://github.com/runsecret/rsec https://github.com/runsecret/rsec)
    - mdaniel 1y ago
      You may want to do your own Show HN about it, so folks don't have to be "MCP curious" to find out that it exists That said, given https://github.com/runsecret/rsec#aws-secrets-manager https://github.com/runsecret/rsec#aws-secrets-manager presumably in order to keep AWS credentials off disk one would then have to have this? "vantage-mcp-server": { "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/aws-vault", "args": [ "exec", "--region=us-east-1", "my-awesome-profile", "--", "/opt/homebrew/bin/rsec", "run", "--", "/opt/homebrew/bin/vantage-mcp-server" ], "env": {"VANTAGE_BEARER_TOKEN": "rsec://012345678912/sm.aws/VantageBearerToken?region=us-east-1"} } in contrast to the op binary that is just one level of indirection, since they already handshake with the desktop app for $(op login) purposes
      - devenjarvis 1y ago
salynchnew 1y ago
This is dangrous, as I've long held that inscrutible cloud billing was one of the greatest protections we had against a runaway superintelligent AI. Now we only have poor IAM UX to fall back on. /s

119 points by StratusBen 1y ago

cat-whisperer 1y ago

This is going to different, as resources end up getting intertwined? or is there a way to standardize it?

andrenotgiant 1y ago

What's the difference between connecting an LLM to the data through Vantage vs directly to the AWS cost and usage API's?

StratusBen 1y ago
A few things. The biggest is giving the LLM context. On Vantage we have a primitive called a "Cost Report" that you can think of as being a set of filters. So you can create a cost report for a particular environment (production vs staging) or by service (front-end service vs back-end service). When you ask questions to the LLM, it will take the context into account versus just looking at all of the raw usage in your account. Most of our customers will create these filters, define reports, and organize them into folders and the LLM takes that context into account which can be helpful for asking questions. Lastly, we support more providers beyond AWS so if you wanted to merge in other associated costs like Datadog, Temporal, Clickhouse, etc.

mdaniel 1y ago

How does this work? https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server?tab=License-1-ov-file#non-commercial-use https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server?tab=License... That is extra weird when thinking about the audience who might be Vantage.sh users (and thus have the ability to create the read-only token mentioned elsewhere) but would almost certainly be using it from their workstation, in a commercial context. Sounds like you're trying to keep someone from selling your MCP toy and decided to be cute with the licensing text

bluck 1y ago
I'm just trying to understand licenses, but doesn't the choice of MIT contradict the inital "non-commercial purposes" as MIT says 'including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software' - Therefore, the non-commercial purposes is actually void and I can use the software to the limits of MIT defines? And because it is already MIT, they can relicense only future software but not this piece anymore?
- skwashd 1y ago
  IANAL but that is my understanding. I created an issue to get some clarification - https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server/issues/31 https://github.com/vantage-sh/vantage-mcp-server/issues/31
  - skwashd 1y ago
    The issue was initially closed with the following comment: > Hey Dave, it is as it is stated. The MCP is published with dual licenses depending on your intent. > https://fossa.com/blog/dual-licensing-models-explained/ https://fossa.com/blog/dual-licensing-models-explained/ After further discussion on the ticket the license is now just MIT.
- ddingus 1y ago
  You have a couple problems that I can see: One is the MIT license does not prohibit selling. And wrapping it in a "for non-commercial uses" clause creates a contradiction difficult, if not impossible to enforce.

ponywombat 1y ago

AWS have also made their own cost analysis MCP server https://github.com/awslabs/mcp/tree/main/src/cost-analysis-mcp-server https://github.com/awslabs/mcp/tree/main/src/cost-analysis-m...

neuroelectron 1y ago
What a great solution. They can leverage this to avoid liability for their own price quotes and solutions while simultaneously adding another layer of vender lock-in. synergy
- cowsandmilk 1y ago
  How does this avoid liability for anything?
  - mcintyre1994 1y ago
    I don't think anyone's really stated this outright, but large companies must believe they're not liable for anything their models/AI products are producing. That must be the case for their business model to work.
  - neuroelectron 1y ago
    A better question is how can they be held liable at all.

_pdp_ 1y ago

On a related note, I'm not sure when it became "ok" to leave production credentials scattered across your system in configuration files. So many MCP server examples encourage this pattern, and inevitably, it's going to cause trouble at some point.

Game_Ender 1y ago
What is your preferred way to manage them?
- ivanvanderbyl 1y ago
  1Password’s CLI op does a reasonably good job of this
- devenjarvis 1y ago
  The 1pass CLI is great! However if you aren’t using 1password as your secrets vault, I’m building an open source, vault-agnostic alternative called RunSecret (https://github.com/runsecret/rsec https://github.com/runsecret/rsec)
  - mdaniel 1y ago
    You may want to do your own Show HN about it, so folks don't have to be "MCP curious" to find out that it exists That said, given https://github.com/runsecret/rsec#aws-secrets-manager https://github.com/runsecret/rsec#aws-secrets-manager presumably in order to keep AWS credentials off disk one would then have to have this? "vantage-mcp-server": { "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/aws-vault", "args": [ "exec", "--region=us-east-1", "my-awesome-profile", "--", "/opt/homebrew/bin/rsec", "run", "--", "/opt/homebrew/bin/vantage-mcp-server" ], "env": {"VANTAGE_BEARER_TOKEN": "rsec://012345678912/sm.aws/VantageBearerToken?region=us-east-1"} } in contrast to the op binary that is just one level of indirection, since they already handshake with the desktop app for $(op login) purposes
    - devenjarvis 1y ago

salynchnew 1y ago

This is dangrous, as I've long held that inscrutible cloud billing was one of the greatest protections we had against a runaway superintelligent AI. Now we only have poor IAM UX to fall back on. /s