AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation is Amazon Web Services' infrastructure as code (IaC) service that enables users to model, provision, and manage AWS infrastructure and resources using declarative templates written in JSON or YAML format. CloudFormation allows organizations to define their entire cloud infrastructure stack programmatically, treating infrastructure as version-controlled code that can be deployed, updated, and replicated consistently across multiple environments, regions, and AWS accounts.

Category	Infrastructure as code
Direction	Query source
Sign-in	No Authentication
Query languages	SQLite
Tables	4
Query templates	13
Website	http://aws.com

Before you start

AWS CloudFormation needs no credentials — Huntbase queries it without signing in.

Watch out for

• Put a template extension on each wildcard, such as *.template, *.yaml or *.json. A bare * also matches files that aren't templates, which can cause errors.
• Use // to separate a repository or bucket from the subdirectory you want to read.
• Private S3 buckets need AWS credentials that have s3:ListBucket, s3:GetObject and s3:GetObjectVersion. You can read public buckets without credentials.

Connect AWS CloudFormation

1. Go to Connections and click New connection, or click New connection on the AWS CloudFormation product page.
2. On Product, pick AWS CloudFormation and choose the Owner.
3. On Details, give the connection a Name and, optionally, a Description.
4. On Connect, fill in the settings and credentials described below.
5. On Verify, review the summary and click Create & check.

For everything else on the setup page — saving a draft, I'll do this later, and what each check result means — see Connections.

Settings

Where your AWS CloudFormation lives:

Field	Required	Notes
Paths	No	A list of template locations. Each entry can be a Git repository URL such as github.com/awslabs/aws-cloudformation-templates//**/*.yaml or an S3 URL such as s3::https://<bucket>.s3.<region>.amazonaws.com/<folder>//*.yaml. Wildcards and ** for recursive matches are supported.

Credentials

The only Method is No Authentication. Enter a Credential label (for example Production), then fill in:

No fields — choose this method to connect without credentials.

Query it

Once connected, AWS CloudFormation can serve these languages in a query tab, and Scout can use it when you ask in Auto:

Language	Use it for
SQLite	SQL over the 4 tables listed below, alongside every other connected source.

Example: SQLite

CloudFormation Stack Output Basic Info — Explore the key details of AWS CloudFormation stack outputs, including output values, descriptions, and paths.

select
  name,
  description,
  value,
  path
from
  awscfn_output;

AWS CloudFormation ships with 13 query templates. Find them in Library › Queries — see Query templates.

Tables

AWS CloudFormation adds 4 tables. Browse their columns from Schema in the query bar's ⋯ menu.

All 4 tables

Table	Contains
awscfn_mapping	CloudFormation mapping information.
awscfn_output	CloudFormation resource information
awscfn_parameter	CloudFormation parameter information
awscfn_resource	CloudFormation resource information.

Next steps

• Connections — health, credentials and settings after you connect
• Query languages — syntax, parameters and time ranges
• Chatting with Scout — ask questions without writing a query
• All integrations — the rest of the catalog