Azure SRE Agent supports scheduled tasks that run skills automatically on a cadence. This turns reactive skills into proactive monitoring.
| Skill | Cadence | Best day/time | Prompt to schedule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compliance & Governance | Weekly | Monday 9 AM | "Run a governance audit and report findings" |
| FinOps Intelligence | Monthly | 1st business day, 10 AM | "Generate the monthly FinOps report with cost allocation" |
| Capacity Planning | Bi-weekly | Every other Wednesday | "Check capacity headroom for all production workloads" |
| Defender Secure Score | Weekly | Friday 3 PM | "Check our secure score and identify top improvements" |
| Well-Architected Review | Quarterly | 1st Monday of quarter | "Run a full Well-Architected review" |
- Open Azure SRE Agent → Automation (left sidebar)
- Click + Create → Scheduled task
- Configure:
- Task name: e.g., "Weekly Governance Audit"
- Response subagent: (optional) Select a specific subagent if configured
- Task details: The natural language instruction for the agent (include resource identifiers and expected output format)
- Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or custom
- Time of day: When to run (timezone shown in UI)
- Start on / Repeat until: Date range for the schedule
- Model tier: General Purpose (default) or higher
- Message grouping for updates: "Use same chat thread" keeps all runs in one thread
- Set a run limit: (optional) Max number of executions
- Agent autonomy level: Autonomous (runs without approval) or Review (asks before acting)
- Click Create task
Task name: Weekly Secure Score Monitor
Frequency: Weekly (Friday)
Time of day: 15:00 UTC
Task details: "Check our Defender Secure Score. Compare with last week's score. List the top 3 quick wins we can implement this sprint. If score dropped, explain why."
Agent autonomy level: Autonomous
Task name: Monthly FinOps Report
Frequency: Monthly (1st)
Time of day: 10:00 UTC
Task details: "Generate a full FinOps report for last month. Include cost allocation by the cost-center tag, identify all waste, and compare spend vs. previous month. Highlight any team with >20% increase."
Agent autonomy level: Autonomous
❌ "Check costs" ✅ "Identify cost savings opportunities across all production subscriptions. Focus on orphaned resources and rightsizing. Only report findings with >$50/month potential savings."
❌ "Run security check" ✅ "Check our Defender Secure Score and compare with the last run. Report new findings, resolved findings, and score trend."
- Don't over-schedule: Running cost analysis daily wastes agent compute (costs change slowly)
- Do schedule before events: Add an ad-hoc capacity check before known traffic spikes
- Match business rhythm: FinOps monthly aligns with billing cycles; governance weekly matches sprint cadence
The SRE Agent has memory. Scheduled tasks build up a history:
- "Compare this week's compliance score with last week's"
- "Are the same issues repeating from the last 3 capacity checks?"
- "Has our secure score trend been improving over the last month?"
After each run:
- Check Automation → Scheduled tasks tab for execution history (Last run, Completed runs columns)
- Use "Message grouping for updates" set to "Use same chat thread" to keep a running history in one place
- Review the agent's memory periodically for trend insights
Each scheduled task execution consumes agent compute:
- Simple skills (Defender score check): ~500-1000 tokens → minimal cost
- Complex skills (full WAF review): ~5000-10000 tokens → moderate cost
- Use Model tier "General Purpose" for routine checks (cheaper) and upgrade only for complex analysis
Tip: Set a run limit on experimental tasks to avoid unexpected costs while tuning prompts.