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Skillsservice-quota-check

service-quota-check

Deployment & operations

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Updated 10-15 17:23

About this skill

Service Quota Check

Use this skill to check AWS service quota utilization during investigations and before provisioning new resources. It determines whether a quota is nearing its limit (85%+ utilization) and takes action: requesting a quota increase via the Service Quotas API when possible, or recommending a support case when programmatic increases are not supported.

When to Use This Skill

  • An error message indicates throttling or limit exceeded (e.g., ThrottlingException, TooManyRequestsException, LimitExceededException, ResourceLimitExceeded).
  • A resource creation or scaling operation fails with capacity errors.
  • An investigation recommendation involves provisioning additional AWS resources (e.g., adding EC2 instances, creating VPCs, adding NAT Gateways, launching RDS instances).
  • Capacity planning or pre-launch readiness checks.
  • Proactive monitoring of quota utilization across services.

Prerequisites

  • The agent must have permissions to call Service Quotas APIs:
    • servicequotas:ListServices
    • servicequotas:ListServiceQuotas
    • servicequotas:GetServiceQuota
    • servicequotas:RequestServiceQuotaIncrease
    • servicequotas:ListRequestedServiceQuotaChangeHistory
    • servicequotas:CreateSupportCase
  • For utilization data via CloudWatch, the agent needs:
    • cloudwatch:GetMetricData
    • cloudwatch:GetMetricStatistics
  • Service Quotas is a regional service. Quotas must be checked in the region where resources are deployed.

Step 1: Identify the Service and Quota Context

Determine which service and quota to check based on the investigation context:

  1. From error messages — extract the service name and specific limit mentioned.
  2. From recommendations — if the recommendation is to provision resources, identify the service (e.g., EC2, VPC, RDS, Lambda, ELB) and the resource type.
  3. From alarms — if a CloudWatch alarm indicates capacity pressure, identify the underlying service.

Common service codes

AWS Service Service Code
Amazon EC2 ec2
Amazon VPC vpc
Elastic Load Balancing elasticloadbalancing
Amazon RDS rds
AWS Lambda lambda
Amazon ECS ecs
Amazon EKS eks
Amazon S3 s3
Amazon DynamoDB dynamodb
AWS Fargate fargate
Amazon CloudWatch monitoring
AWS CloudFormation cloudformation
Amazon SQS sqs
Amazon SNS sns
Amazon ElastiCache elasticache
Amazon OpenSearch Service es
Auto Scaling autoscaling

If you do not know the service code, use:

aws service-quotas list-services \
  --query "Services[?contains(ServiceName, '<keyword>')]" \
  --region <region>

Step 2: Retrieve Quota Value and Utilization

Get the applied quota value

aws service-quotas get-service-quota \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --quota-code <quota-code> \
  --region <region>

The response includes:

  • Value — the current quota limit (applied value, or default if no increase was granted)
  • Adjustable — whether the quota can be increased
  • UsageMetric — CloudWatch metric to check current utilization (if available)

If you do not know the quota code

List all quotas for the service:

aws service-quotas list-service-quotas \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --region <region>

Filter by quota name keyword:

aws service-quotas list-service-quotas \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --region <region> \
  --query "Quotas[?contains(QuotaName, '<keyword>')]"

Get current utilization via CloudWatch

If the UsageMetric field is present in the quota response, query CloudWatch for actual usage:

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics \
  --namespace "<MetricNamespace>" \
  --metric-name "<MetricName>" \
  --dimensions <MetricDimensions> \
  --start-time "<15-minutes-ago-ISO8601>" \
  --end-time "<now-ISO8601>" \
  --period 300 \
  --statistics <MetricStatisticRecommendation> \
  --region <region>

The UsageMetric object from the quota response provides all the parameters:

  • MetricNamespace — typically AWS/Usage
  • MetricName — typically ResourceCount
  • MetricDimensions — service-specific dimensions (e.g., Class, Resource, Service, Type)
  • MetricStatisticRecommendation — either Maximum or Sum

Alternative: count resources directly

If no UsageMetric is available, count resources using the service's Describe/List APIs:

Service Command to count resources
EC2 instances aws ec2 describe-instances --query "Reservations[].Instances[] | length(@)"
VPCs aws ec2 describe-vpcs --query "Vpcs | length(@)"
NAT Gateways aws ec2 describe-nat-gateways --filter Name=state,Values=available --query "NatGateways | length(@)"
EIPs aws ec2 describe-addresses --query "Addresses | length(@)"
RDS instances aws rds describe-db-instances --query "DBInstances | length(@)"
Lambda functions aws lambda list-functions --query "Functions | length(@)"
ECS services aws ecs list-services --cluster <cluster> --query "serviceArns | length(@)"
ALBs aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers --query "LoadBalancers | length(@)"

Step 3: Calculate Utilization and Assess Risk

Calculate utilization percentage

utilization_pct = (current_usage / quota_value) × 100

Risk assessment thresholds

Utilization Risk Level Action
< 70% Low No action needed. Report current state.
70% – 84% Medium Flag as approaching limit. Monitor closely.
85% – 94% High Recommend quota increase. Proceed to Step 4.
95% – 100% Critical Urgent quota increase required. Proceed to Step 4.
= 100% Exhausted Quota is blocking operations. Immediate action required.

Present findings

Always show the user a summary table:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Service Quota Check                                                  │
├─────────────────────────┬───────────┬─────────┬─────────┬───────────┤
│ Quota Name              │ Limit     │ Used    │ % Used  │ Status    │
├─────────────────────────┼───────────┼─────────┼─────────┼───────────┤
│ Running On-Demand (std) │ 1920 vCPU │ 1740    │ 90.6%   │ ⚠️ HIGH   │
│ VPCs per Region         │ 5         │ 5       │ 100%    │ 🚫 FULL   │
│ NAT Gateways per AZ    │ 5         │ 3       │ 60%     │ ✅ OK     │
└─────────────────────────┴───────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┘

Step 4: Request Quota Increase

When utilization is at 85% or higher, proceed based on whether the quota is adjustable.

Decision Tree

Is utilization >= 85%?
├── NO → Report findings, no action needed
└── YES → Check "Adjustable" field
    ├── Adjustable = true → Proceed to quota increase request
    │   ├── Ask user to confirm the increase
    │   ├── User confirms → Submit request via API (Step 4a)
    │   └── User declines → Report findings only
    └── Adjustable = false → Recommend support case (Step 4b)

Step 4a: Submit Quota Increase Request via API

Before requesting, determine the desired new value. Use this formula:

desired_value = current_quota × 1.5   (50% increase over current limit)

If the quota is already exhausted (100% utilization), recommend:

desired_value = current_quota × 2.0   (double the current limit)

Present the recommendation to the user:

"The quota [QuotaName] is at [X]% utilization ([current_usage]/[quota_value]). I recommend increasing it to [desired_value]. Shall I submit the quota increase request?"

If the user confirms, submit the request:

aws service-quotas request-service-quota-increase \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --quota-code <quota-code> \
  --desired-value <desired-value> \
  --region <region>

After submitting, check the response:

  • Status: PENDING — request submitted successfully. Inform the user that AWS will review the request (typically processed within minutes for auto-approved quotas, or up to a few days for manual review).
  • Status: CASE_OPENED — a support case was automatically created.

Report the request ID and status:

"Quota increase request submitted successfully.

  • Request ID: [Id]
  • Status: [Status]
  • Desired value: [DesiredValue]

You can check the status with: aws service-quotas get-requested-service-quota-change --request-id <Id>"

Step 4b: Recommend Support Case (non-adjustable quotas)

If the quota cannot be increased via the API (Adjustable: false), inform the user:

"The quota [QuotaName] cannot be increased programmatically via the Service Quotas API. To request an increase, you need to open an AWS Support case.

Would you like me to:

  1. Open a support case via the Service Quotas API (requires an existing pending quota increase request)
  2. Provide instructions to open a support case manually via the AWS Console"

If there is an existing pending request, use:

aws service-quotas create-support-case \
  --request-id <request-id> \
  --region <region>

Otherwise, provide manual instructions:

"To request this quota increase:

  1. Go to the AWS Support Center: https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/
  2. Create a new case → Service limit increase
  3. Select service: [ServiceName]
  4. Select quota: [QuotaName]
  5. Specify the new desired value: [desired_value]
  6. Provide business justification for the increase"

Step 5: Check for Pending Requests

Before submitting a new request, check if there is already a pending increase request:

aws service-quotas list-requested-service-quota-change-history-by-quota \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --quota-code <quota-code> \
  --region <region> \
  --query "RequestedQuotas[?Status=='PENDING']"

If a pending request exists:

  • Report the existing request details (ID, desired value, date submitted)
  • Do NOT submit a duplicate request
  • Offer to create a support case to expedite the existing request if needed

Step 6: Post-Increase Verification

After a quota increase is approved, verify the new limit:

aws service-quotas get-service-quota \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --quota-code <quota-code> \
  --region <region>

Confirm the Value field reflects the new limit.

Multi-Quota Check (Bulk Assessment)

When a recommendation involves provisioning multiple resource types, or for proactive capacity planning, check all relevant quotas for the service:

aws service-quotas list-service-quotas \
  --service-code <service-code> \
  --region <region>

For each quota that has a UsageMetric, calculate utilization. Report any quotas at 70%+ utilization as part of a comprehensive capacity report.

Common Quota Codes Reference

See references/common-quota-codes.md for a table of frequently checked quota codes by service.

Error Handling

Error Cause Resolution
NoSuchResourceException Quota code does not exist for the service Use list-service-quotas to find the correct code
TooManyRequestsException Service Quotas API is throttling Wait and retry with exponential backoff
ResourceAlreadyExistsException A pending request already exists Check existing requests (Step 5)
QuotaExceededException The desired value exceeds the maximum allowed Reduce the desired value or open a support case
AccessDeniedException Missing IAM permissions Check that the agent has servicequotas:* permissions
DependencyAccessDeniedException Missing permissions on the target service Verify IAM policies for the target service

Tips

  • Check the region: Service quotas are regional. Always query in the region where resources are deployed, unless the quota is global (check GlobalQuota: true).
  • Applied vs. default: get-service-quota returns the applied value (which may differ from the default if a previous increase was granted). Use get-aws-default-service-quota to see the original default.
  • Auto-approved vs. manual: Many quotas (especially EC2 vCPU limits) are auto-approved within minutes. Others require manual AWS review. The API does not indicate which type a quota is in advance — submit the request and monitor the status.
  • Resource-level quotas: Some quotas (e.g., OpenSearch instances per domain) are resource-level. Use --context-id with the resource ARN for these.
  • Rate-based quotas: Some quotas measure requests per second (e.g., API call rates). These require different monitoring approaches (CloudWatch metrics rather than resource counts).