CloudFormation

CloudFormation

Use AWS CloudFormation with LocalStack

Overview

AWS CloudFormation is AWS’s primary Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) service. It is used to declaratively define your architecture on the AWS cloud, including resources such as S3 Buckets, Lambda Functions, and much more.

CloudFormation Stack templates are written in either YAML or JSON and can be written manually or generated by higher-level tools such as AWS CDK, AWS SAM, Pulumi or Serverless Framework.

Quickstart

In this quickstart guide we will deploy a simple CloudFormation stack consisting of a single S3 Bucket.

Prerequisites

Make sure you’ve set up awslocal and that you have a running LocalStack instance.

Deploy a CloudFormation Stack to LocalStack

YAML
JSON

Resources:
  LocalBucket:
    Type: AWS::S3::Bucket
    Properties:
      BucketName: cfn-quickstart-bucket

{
  "Resources": {
    "LocalBucket": {
      "Type": "AWS::S3::Bucket",
      "Properties": {
        "BucketName": "cfn-quickstart-bucket"
      }
    }
  }
}

Use this code snippet and save the content in either cfn-quickstart-stack.yaml or cfn-quickstart-stack.json respectively.

# Deploy the bucket on LocalStack
# The template file (ending with .yaml or .json) should contain the stack content from above
awslocal cloudformation deploy --stack-name cfn-quickstart-stack --template-file "./cfn-quickstart-stack.yaml"
# Verify the bucket was created successfully
# The output should include a bucket with the name cfn-quickstart-bucket
awslocal s3api list-buckets
# Delete the stack (this will also delete the bucket)
awslocal cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name cfn-quickstart-stack

Check out the official AWS CloudFormation User Guide for a general introduction to CloudFormation concepts and a more comprehensive introduction on how to write CloudFormation templates.

Support

We are constantly improving our feature coverage for CloudFormation, with new resource types getting added on an ongoing basis. Your feature requests help us prioritize which resources we need to prioritize, so please feel free to open a new GitHub issue or add a thumbs up to an existing issue.

Features

Feature	Support
Parameters	Partial
Dynamic References	-
Rules	-
Mappings	Full
Conditions	Full
Transform	Partial (Only for `AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31`)
Outputs	Full
Custom resources	Partial
Drift detection	-
Importing Resources	-
Change sets	Full
Nested stacks	Partial
StackSets	Partial

In general UPDATE support for resources is currently limited. Prefer re-creating a stack rather than updating an existing one.

Resources (Community Edition)

Resource	Create	Delete	Update
AWS::ApiGateway::Account	-	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::ApiKey	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::BasePathMapping	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::Deployment	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::DomainName	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::GatewayResponse	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::Method	✅	-	✅
AWS::ApiGateway::Model	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::RequestValidator	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGateway::Resource	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::RestApi	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGateway::Stage	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::UsagePlan	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::UsagePlanKey	✅	-	-
AWS::CDK::Metadata	-	-	-
AWS::CertificateManager::Certificate	✅	✅	-
AWS::CloudFormation::Stack	✅	-	-
AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm	✅	✅	-
AWS::CloudWatch::CompositeAlarm	✅	✅	-
AWS::DynamoDB::Table	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::Instance	✅	✅	✅
AWS::EC2::InternetGateway	✅	-	-
AWS::EC2::NatGateway	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::Route	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::RouteTable	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::SecurityGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::Subnet	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::SubnetRouteTableAssociation	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::VPC	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::VPCGatewayAttachment	✅	-	-
AWS::ECR::Repository	✅	✅	-
AWS::Elasticsearch::Domain	✅	✅	-
AWS::Events::Connection	✅	✅	-
AWS::Events::EventBus	✅	✅	-
AWS::Events::EventBusPolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::Events::Rule	✅	✅	-
AWS::IAM::Group	✅	✅	-
AWS::IAM::InstanceProfile	✅	✅	-
AWS::IAM::ManagedPolicy	✅	-	-
AWS::IAM::Policy	✅	✅	-
AWS::IAM::Role	✅	✅	✅
AWS::IAM::ServiceLinkedRole	✅	✅	-
AWS::IAM::User	✅	✅	-
AWS::KMS::Alias	✅	✅	-
AWS::KMS::Key	✅	✅	-
AWS::Kinesis::Stream	✅	✅	-
AWS::Kinesis::StreamConsumer	✅	✅	-
AWS::KinesisFirehose::DeliveryStream	✅	✅	-
AWS::Lambda::EventInvokeConfig	✅	✅	-
AWS::Lambda::EventSourceMapping	✅	-	-
AWS::Lambda::Function	✅	✅	✅
AWS::Lambda::Permission	✅	-	-
AWS::Lambda::Version	✅	-	-
AWS::Logs::LogGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::Logs::LogStream	✅	✅	-
AWS::Logs::SubscriptionFilter	✅	✅	-
AWS::OpenSearchService::Domain	✅	✅	-
AWS::Redshift::Cluster	✅	-	-
AWS::ResourceGroups::Group	✅	✅	-
AWS::Route53::RecordSet	✅	-	-
AWS::S3::Bucket	✅	✅	-
AWS::S3::BucketPolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::SNS::Subscription	✅	✅	-
AWS::SNS::Topic	✅	✅	-
AWS::SNS::TopicPolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::SQS::Queue	✅	✅	-
AWS::SQS::QueuePolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::SSM::Parameter	✅	✅	-
AWS::SecretsManager::ResourcePolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::SecretsManager::RotationSchedule	-	-	-
AWS::SecretsManager::Secret	✅	✅	-
AWS::SecretsManager::SecretTargetAttachment	-	-	-
AWS::StepFunctions::Activity	✅	✅	-
AWS::StepFunctions::StateMachine	✅	✅	✅

Resources (Pro / Enterprise Edition)

The resources below are only available with a valid Pro license key. When running the Community Edition, any unsupported resources in the stack are ignored and will not get deployed.

Resource	Create	Delete	Update
AWS::Amplify::App	✅	-	-
AWS::Amplify::Branch	✅	-	-
AWS::ApiGateway::Authorizer	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Api	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Authorizer	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Deployment	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::DomainName	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Integration	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::IntegrationResponse	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Route	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::RouteResponse	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Stage	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApiGatewayV2::VpcLink	✅	✅	-
AWS::AppSync::ApiKey	✅	-	-
AWS::AppSync::DataSource	✅	-	-
AWS::AppSync::FunctionConfiguration	✅	-	-
AWS::AppSync::GraphQLApi	✅	-	-
AWS::AppSync::GraphQLSchema	✅	-	-
AWS::AppSync::Resolver	✅	✅	✅
AWS::ApplicationAutoScaling::ScalableTarget	✅	✅	-
AWS::ApplicationAutoScaling::ScalingPolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::Backup::BackupPlan	✅	✅	-
AWS::CloudFormation::CustomResource	✅	-	-
AWS::CloudFront::CloudFrontOriginAccessIdentity	✅	-	-
AWS::CloudFront::Distribution	✅	-	-
AWS::CloudFront::Function	✅	✅	-
AWS::CloudFront::OriginRequestPolicy	✅	✅	-
AWS::CloudTrail::Trail	✅	✅	-
AWS::Cognito::IdentityPool	✅	✅	-
AWS::Cognito::IdentityPoolRoleAttachment	✅	-	-
AWS::Cognito::UserPool	✅	✅	-
AWS::Cognito::UserPoolClient	✅	✅	-
AWS::Cognito::UserPoolDomain	✅	✅	-
AWS::Cognito::UserPoolGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::Cognito::UserPoolIdentityProvider	✅	✅	-
AWS::DocDB::DBCluster	✅	✅	-
AWS::DocDB::DBClusterParameterGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::DocDB::DBInstance	✅	✅	-
AWS::DocDB::DBSubnetGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::EIP	✅	✅	-
AWS::EC2::SecurityGroupEgress	✅	-	-
AWS::EC2::SecurityGroupIngress	✅	-	-
AWS::EC2::VPCEndpoint	✅	-	-
AWS::ECS::Cluster	✅	✅	-
AWS::ECS::Service	✅	✅	-
AWS::ECS::TaskDefinition	✅	-	-
AWS::ElastiCache::CacheCluster	✅	✅	-
AWS::ElastiCache::ParameterGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::ElastiCache::ReplicationGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::ElastiCache::SecurityGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::ElastiCache::SubnetGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::Listener	✅	-	-
AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::ListenerRule	✅	-	-
AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::LoadBalancer	✅	-	-
AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::TargetGroup	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Classifier	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Crawler	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Database	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Job	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Table	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Trigger	✅	-	-
AWS::Glue::Workflow	✅	-	-
AWS::IoT::Certificate	✅	-	-
AWS::IoT::Policy	✅	✅	-
AWS::IoT::Thing	✅	✅	-
AWS::IoT::TopicRule	✅	✅	-
AWS::IoTAnalytics::Channel	✅	✅	-
AWS::IoTAnalytics::Dataset	✅	✅	-
AWS::IoTAnalytics::Datastore	✅	✅	-
AWS::IoTAnalytics::Pipeline	✅	✅	-
AWS::KinesisAnalytics::Application	✅	-	-
AWS::KinesisAnalytics::ApplicationOutput	✅	-	-
AWS::Lambda::Alias	✅	-	-
AWS::Lambda::LayerVersion	✅	-	-
AWS::Lambda::LayerVersionPermission	✅	-	-
AWS::MSK::Cluster	✅	✅	-
AWS::QLDB::Ledger	✅	✅	-
AWS::RDS::DBCluster	✅	✅	-
AWS::RDS::DBClusterParameterGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::RDS::DBInstance	✅	✅	-
AWS::RDS::DBParameterGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::RDS::DBSubnetGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::Redshift::ClusterParameterGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::Redshift::ClusterSecurityGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::Redshift::ClusterSubnetGroup	✅	✅	-
AWS::Route53::HostedZone	✅	✅	-
AWS::SES::ReceiptRule	✅	✅	-
AWS::SES::ReceiptRuleSet	✅	✅	-
AWS::SES::Template	✅	✅	✅
AWS::ServiceDiscovery::HttpNamespace	✅	✅	-
AWS::ServiceDiscovery::PrivateDnsNamespace	✅	✅	-
AWS::ServiceDiscovery::PublicDnsNamespace	✅	✅	-
AWS::ServiceDiscovery::Service	✅	✅	-
AWS::Timestream::Database	✅	✅	-
AWS::Timestream::Table	✅	✅	-

Last modified July 12, 2022: add current cfn model coverage (#200) (bd75be41)