Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
npx skills add vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills --skill defender-for-cloud-hardeninggit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skillsWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills/defender-for-cloud-hardening)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills/defender-for-cloud-hardening"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills/defender-for-cloud-hardening/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills/defender-for-cloud-hardening"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills/defender-for-cloud-hardening.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00193 | $0.01731 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00097 | $0.00865 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00039 | $0.00346 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00019 | $0.00173 |
Grade A, and why
defender-for-cloud-hardening scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 13d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 121 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud (Hardening)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) combining CSPM (posture, Secure Score, attack paths) and CWPP (threat protection for servers, containers, databases, storage, APIs, AI) across Azure, AWS, and GCP.
When to use
Assessing and improving cloud security posture, and enabling workload threat protection across a multicloud estate. Use this skill to choose which Defender plans to enable, how to prioritise remediation, and how to operationalise findings.
Do not use this skill for SaaS posture (cloud-app-security-posture), Sentinel SIEM
(sentinel), or extending Azure management to on-prem (azure-arc).
Pick the Defender plan by workload
| Workload | Plan | Enable when |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions / accounts (posture) | Foundational CSPM (free) | Always; everywhere |
| Multicloud + attack paths + agentless scanning | Defender CSPM | Tier 1+ environments |
| Windows / Linux servers (EDR, file integrity, JIT) | Defender for Servers Plan 2 | Production servers |
| Storage accounts (malware, sensitive-data scanning) | Defender for Storage | Public-facing / sensitive data |
| AKS / EKS / GKE clusters | Defender for Containers | Any production cluster |
| SQL, Cosmos DB, open-source DBs | Defender for Databases | Internet-exposed or sensitive |
| App Service apps | Defender for App Service | Internet-facing apps |
| Key Vault | Defender for Key Vault | Tier 0 / regulated |
| APIs behind APIM | Defender for APIs | Public APIs |
| Azure AI / OpenAI workloads | Defender for AI Services | AI workloads handling org data |
Rule of thumb: Foundational CSPM everywhere on day one (it's free). Then enable Defender for Servers Plan 2 + Defender CSPM in production - those two unlock the most value (attack paths, EDR integration). Other plans by risk and budget.
Approach
- Connect all clouds — Onboard Azure (auto), AWS (connector + CloudFormation), GCP (connector + service account). Without all clouds connected, attack paths can't trace across them. Verify: AWS / GCP connectors show "Connected"; recommendations appearing within 24 hours.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 13d ago First seen · 121 lines · 193 tokens per session scan A c7c9643ab818
defender-for-cloud-hardening is a skill published in the GitHub repository vinayaklatthe/microsoft-security-skills (173 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 193 tokens to every session and 1,731 once invoked, about $0.0010 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
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