Describing and listing your stacks - Amazon CloudFormation
aws cloudformation list-stacksaws cloudformation describe-stacksStack status codes
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Describing and listing your stacks

You can use two Amazon CLI commands to get information about your Amazon CloudFormation stacks: aws cloudformation list-stacks and aws cloudformation describe-stacks.

Note

See Amazon CloudFormation resources for a discussion of how IAM policies may limit what a user can do with these two Amazon CLI commands.

aws cloudformation list-stacks

The aws cloudformation list-stacks command enables you to get a list of any of the stacks you have created (even those which have been deleted up to 90 days). You can use an option to filter results by stack status, such as CREATE_COMPLETE and DELETE_COMPLETE. The aws cloudformation list-stacks command returns summary information about any of your running or deleted stacks, including the name, stack identifier, template, and status.

Note

The aws cloudformation list-stacks command returns information on deleted stacks for 90 days after they have been deleted.

The following example shows a summary of all stacks that have a status of CREATE_COMPLETE.

PROMPT> aws cloudformation list-stacks --stack-status-filter CREATE_COMPLETE
[
    {
        "StackId": "arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-2:123456789012:stack/myteststack/
644df8e0-0dff-11e3-8e2f-5088487c4896",
        "TemplateDescription": "AWS CloudFormation Sample Template S3_Bucket: Sample template showing how to create a publicly accessible S3 bucket. **WARNING** This template creates an
S3 bucket. You will be billed for the AWS resources used if you create a stack from this template.",
        "StackStatusReason": null,
        "CreationTime": "2013-08-26T03:27:10.190Z",
        "StackName": "myteststack",
        "StackStatus": "CREATE_COMPLETE"
    }
]

aws cloudformation describe-stacks

The aws cloudformation describe-stacks command provides information on your running stacks. You can use an option to filter results on a stack name. This command returns information about the stack, including the name, stack identifier, and status.

The following example shows summary information for the myteststack stack.

PROMPT> aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name myteststack
{
    "Stacks":  [
        {
            "StackId": "arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-2:123456789012:stack/myteststack/a69442d0-0b8f-11e3-8b8a-500150b352e0",
            "Description": "Amazon CloudFormation Sample Template S3_Bucket: Sample template showing how to create a publicly accessible S3 bucket. **WARNING** This template creates an S3 bucket.
You will be billed for the Amazon resources used if you create a stack from this template.",
            "Tags": [],
            "Outputs": [
                {
                    "Description": "Name of S3 bucket to hold website content",
                    "OutputKey": "BucketName",
                    "OutputValue": "myteststack-s3bucket-jssofi1zie2w"
                }
            ],
            "StackStatusReason": null,
            "CreationTime": "2013-08-23T01:02:15.422Z",
            "Capabilities": [],
            "StackName": "myteststack",
            "StackStatus": "CREATE_COMPLETE",
            "DisableRollback": false
        }
    ]
}

If you don't use the --stack-name option to limit the output to one stack, information on all your running stacks is returned.

Stack status codes

You can specify one or more stack status codes to list only stacks with the specified status codes. The following table describes each stack status code:

Stack Status Description

CREATE_COMPLETE

Successful creation of one or more stacks.

CREATE_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing creation of one or more stacks.

CREATE_FAILED

Unsuccessful creation of one or more stacks. View the stack events to see any associated error messages. Possible reasons for a failed creation include insufficient permissions to work with all resources in the stack, parameter values rejected by an Amazon service, or a timeout during resource creation.

DELETE_COMPLETE

Successful deletion of one or more stacks. Deleted stacks are retained and viewable for 90 days.

DELETE_FAILED

Unsuccessful deletion of one or more stacks. Because the delete failed, you might have some resources that are still running; however, you can't work with or update the stack. Delete the stack again or view the stack events to see any associated error messages.

DELETE_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing removal of one or more stacks.

REVIEW_IN_PROGRESS

 Ongoing creation of one or more stacks with an expected StackId but without any templates or resources.
Important

A stack with this status code counts against the maximum possible number of stacks.

ROLLBACK_COMPLETE

Successful removal of one or more stacks after a failed stack creation or after an explicitly canceled stack creation. The stack returns to the previous working state. Any resources that were created during the create stack operation are deleted.

This status exists only after a failed stack creation. It signifies that all operations from the partially created stack have been appropriately cleaned up. When in this state, only a delete operation can be performed.

ROLLBACK_FAILED

Unsuccessful removal of one or more stacks after a failed stack creation or after an explicitly canceled stack creation. Delete the stack or view the stack events to see any associated error messages.

ROLLBACK_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing removal of one or more stacks after a failed stack creation or after an explicitly canceled stack creation.

UPDATE_COMPLETE

 Successful update of one or more stacks.

UPDATE_COMPLETE_CLEANUP_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing removal of old resources for one or more stacks after a successful stack update. For stack updates that require resources to be replaced, CloudFormation creates the new resources first and then deletes the old resources to help reduce any interruptions with your stack. In this state, the stack has been updated and is usable, but CloudFormation is still deleting the old resources.

UPDATE_FAILED

 Unsuccessful update of one or more stacks. View the stack events to see any associated error messages.

UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing update of one or more stacks.

UPDATE_ROLLBACK_COMPLETE

Successful return of one or more stacks to a previous working state after a failed stack update.

UPDATE_ROLLBACK_COMPLETE_CLEANUP_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing removal of new resources for one or more stacks after a failed stack update. In this state, the stack has been rolled back to its previous working state and is usable, but CloudFormation is still deleting any new resources it created during the stack update.

UPDATE_ROLLBACK_FAILED

Unsuccessful return of one or more stacks to a previous working state after a failed stack update. When in this state, you can delete the stack or continue rollback. You might need to fix errors before your stack can return to a working state. Or, you can contact Amazon Web Services Support to restore the stack to a usable state.

UPDATE_ROLLBACK_IN_PROGRESS

Ongoing return of one or more stacks to the previous working state after failed stack update.

IMPORT_IN_PROGRESS

The import operation is currently in progress.

IMPORT_COMPLETE

The import operation successfully completed for all resources in the stack that support resource import.

IMPORT_ROLLBACK_IN_PROGRESS

Import will roll back to the previous template configuration.

IMPORT_ROLLBACK_FAILED

The import rollback operation failed for at least one resource in the stack. Results will be available for the resources CloudFormation successfully imported.

IMPORT_ROLLBACK_COMPLETE

Import successfully rolled back to the previous template configuration.