cost-controls | Patterned Designs Documentation

Overview

The cost-controls module implements AWS cost governance through budgets, alerts, and spending limits including:

Automatic budget creation with AWS Budgets service
Multi-threshold alerts at configurable spending percentages
Email and SNS notification integration
Support for cost and usage budget types
Tag-based budget filtering for granular control

Category: Governance Provider: AWS Latest Version: 1.2.0

Quick Start

module "budget" {
  source  = "registry.patterneddesigns.ca/governance/cost-controls/aws"
  version = "1.2.0"

  budget_name  = "monthly-spend-limit"
  budget_limit = 5000

  alert_thresholds = [50, 75, 90, 100]

  notification_emails = [
    "finance@example.com",
    "cloud-ops@example.com"
  ]
}

Key Features

Multi-Threshold Alerts

Configure alerts at multiple spending thresholds to catch cost overruns early:

module "budget" {
  source  = "registry.patterneddesigns.ca/governance/cost-controls/aws"
  version = "1.2.0"

  budget_name  = "production-budget"
  budget_limit = 10000

  alert_thresholds = [25, 50, 75, 90, 100, 110]

  notification_emails = ["finance@example.com"]
}

Connect to existing notification workflows with SNS topics:

module "budget" {
  source  = "registry.patterneddesigns.ca/governance/cost-controls/aws"
  version = "1.2.0"

  budget_name  = "ops-budget"
  budget_limit = 3000

  alert_thresholds    = [80, 100]
  notification_emails = ["ops@example.com"]

  sns_topic_arn = aws_sns_topic.alerts.arn
}

Service-Specific Budgets

Create budgets filtered to specific AWS services:

module "ec2_budget" {
  source  = "registry.patterneddesigns.ca/governance/cost-controls/aws"
  version = "1.2.0"

  budget_name  = "ec2-compute-budget"
  budget_limit = 2000

  alert_thresholds    = [75, 100]
  notification_emails = ["infra@example.com"]

  cost_filters = {
    Service = ["Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Compute"]
  }
}

Documentation

Inputs - All input parameters
Outputs - Output values
Examples - Usage examples
Use Cases - Real-world scenarios
Demonstrations - Step-by-step guides

Registry

View specification on Registry

Inputs

budget_name Required

string

Name for the AWS Budget. Must be unique within your AWS account. Can contain alphanumeric characters, hyphens, underscores, and periods. Maximum 100 characters.

budget_limit Required

number

Monthly budget limit in USD. Sets the maximum expected spend for the budget period and is used as the baseline for calculating alert thresholds.

alert_thresholds

list(number) Default: [50, 80, 100]

Percentage thresholds for budget alerts. Multiple thresholds provide early warning as spending increases. Common patterns: conservative [25, 50, 75, 90, 100], standard [50, 80, 100], aggressive [80, 100, 110].

notification_emails

list(string)

Email addresses for budget notifications. AWS Budgets will send emails directly to these addresses when thresholds are exceeded. Use team distribution lists rather than individual emails.

sns_topic_arn

string

ARN of SNS topic for budget notifications. Allows budget alerts to be published to an existing SNS topic for integration with other notification workflows, automation, and third-party tools. Set to null to skip SNS integration.

Outputs

budget_arn

ARN of the created AWS Budget. Use this for IAM policies and resource references.