Cloudzero MCP Server

Overview

The CloudZero Model Context Protocol (MCP) server bridges the gap between an AI assistant and real‑time cloud cost data. By exposing CloudZero’s billing API through MCP, developers can ask natural language questions—such as “What was the month‑over‑month cost difference for our production environment?”—and receive precise, visualized answers directly inside their LLM workflow. This eliminates the need to manually export CSVs or run CLI commands, allowing cost analysts and DevOps teams to focus on strategy rather than data wrangling.

At its core, the server implements a set of CloudZero‑specific tools that map to common billing operations: , , , and . When a Claude Desktop instance starts, it launches the MCP server as a background process and negotiates capabilities via JSON‑RPC 2.0. The assistant then receives a catalog of prompts and tools, enabling dynamic tool‑calling that can fetch, filter, or aggregate cost information on demand. This design keeps the LLM stateless while delegating heavy lifting to the server, ensuring fast response times and secure handling of API keys.

Key features include:

• Real‑time data access: Pull cost metrics for any date range or dimension without manual exports.
• Visual output: The example screenshot demonstrates how the assistant can generate a month‑over‑month chart, turning raw numbers into actionable insights.
• Secure API integration: The server reads a single CloudZero API key from an environment file, keeping secrets out of the assistant’s memory.
• Extensible tool set: Developers can add new CloudZero endpoints or custom analytics tools by extending the MCP server’s tool registry.
• Seamless workflow integration: Once configured, the MCP server becomes a first‑class component of Claude Desktop’s tool ecosystem, automatically launching on startup and exposing its capabilities to the LLM.

In practice, teams use this server for budget monitoring, anomaly detection, and cost forecasting. A product manager can ask the assistant to “Show me the top five services driving costs this quarter,” and the LLM will call with appropriate filters, returning a concise summary. Similarly, security auditors can request “List all budgets that are over 90% of their limit,” leveraging to surface compliance risks instantly. By embedding cost intelligence directly into conversational AI, CloudZero’s MCP server empowers developers and stakeholders to make data‑driven decisions faster and with less friction.