CloudFormation Deploy Watcher

Documentation · sellerkit

Watch a CloudFormation deploy from inside the IDE and find out why it failed, without scrolling a console tab looking for the first red line.

1. Open the panel and pick a stack

The tool window is called CloudFormation. Fill in Region, leave Profile empty for your default credentials, then choose the stack from the drop-down. The star keeps a stack at the top of the list.

2. Turn on Live and run your deploy

Press Live, then run cdk deploy or sam deploy in the terminal as usual. Events arrive as they happen, newest first.

3. Read the root cause

When a stack rolls back, the line above the table already names the resource that started it and why. You do not have to find it yourself.

The CloudFormation panel showing a root cause line naming the Lambda function and the reason, above a table of rollback events

Below it, the rollback trail in order, so you can see what was torn down.

4. Open the failed resource for the full message

Failures are red in the table. Select one and the whole handler message opens underneath, including the status code and request id you would otherwise dig out of the console.

Red CREATE_FAILED rows with one selected, and the full resource handler message shown in the pane below

Free and paid

Seeing your stacks and their current status is free and stays free. Reading the event history with the root cause, live auto-refresh and favorites need a licence, and every paid feature is included in a 30-day trial that needs no card.

Support

globalmatchhub@gmail.com. We aim to reply within two business days.