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Snowflake cost optimization checklist

A single, copy-paste checklist for the whole Snowflake Cost Optimization Framework. Work top to bottom — it follows the suspend → size → cache → rewrite order of operations, so the earliest items are the largest, lowest-risk wins.

Order of operations​

  1. Suspend idle warehouses — pure waste, zero risk, no result changes.
  2. Size warehouses to their workload — multiplies every later saving.
  3. Cache deterministic reads — eliminating a query beats optimizing it.
  4. Rewrite the queries that remain — last, because it's the most effort per credit.

Visibility​

  • Baseline of credits per warehouse for the last 90 days.
  • Top 25 most expensive query families available on demand.
  • Idle vs active warehouse time measured.
  • Repeated/duplicate queries identified by fingerprint.
  • Cost signals refreshed continuously, not only at month end.

Attribution​

  • Every query resolves to a team or owning workload.
  • BI-tool and dbt traffic attributed, not just hand-written SQL.
  • Attribution independent of manual QUERY_TAG discipline.
  • Per-team 30-day spend report available on demand.
  • Savings attributable to the team/tool that produced them.

Elimination​

  • Idle warehouses auto-suspend on a short timeout.
  • Deterministic reads served from a verified cache.
  • Concurrent identical queries coalesced into one execution.
  • Cache correctness verified continuously, not assumed.
  • SELECT * over wide tables flagged or rewritten.

Efficiency​

  • Warehouse sizes chosen from workload data, not habit.
  • Over-provisioned warehouses downsized.
  • Missing predicates and SELECT * rewritten or flagged.
  • Rewrites equivalence-tested before they're trusted.
  • 60-second resume minimum accounted for in scheduling.

Governance​

  • Each team/workload has a spend budget with alerting.
  • Showback (or chargeback) reports on a regular cadence.
  • Savings recorded with conservative, auditable estimates.
  • Evidence bundles signed and tamper-evident.
  • Periodic review catches warehouses/jobs drifting back up.

How chukei enforces the whole list​

Items above marked "automatically," "verified," "coalesced," or "signed" are enforced in the query path by chukei rather than left to discipline — at the wire-protocol proxy layer, with fail-open safety and no client changes. Map each pillar to its mechanism in the framework overview.

Turn the checklist into numbers. Run the replay simulator on your QUERY_HISTORY to quantify how many boxes you can already tick.