CloudFormation Linter
Validate CloudFormation yaml/json templates against the CloudFormation spec and additional checks. Includes checking valid values for resource properties and best practices.
Warning
This is an attempt to provide validation for CloudFormation templates properties and their values. For values things can get pretty complicated (mappings, joins, splits, conditions, and nesting those functions inside each other) so its a best effort to validate those values but the promise is to not fail if we can't understand or translate all the things that could be going on.
Serverless Application Model
The Serverless Application Model (SAM) is supported by the linter. The template is transformed using AWS SAM https://github.com/awslabs/serverless-application-model before the linter processes the template.
To get information about the SAM Transformation, run the linter with --info
Install
Python 2.7+ and 3.4+ are supported.
Pip Install
pip install cfn-lint
. If pip is not available, run
python setup.py clean --all
then python setup.py install
.
Homebrew (macOS)
brew install cfn-lint
Editor Plugins
There are IDE plugins available to get direct linter feedback from you favorite editor:
- Atom
- Emacs
- NeoVim 0.2.0+/Vim 8
- Sublime
- Visual Studio Code
- IntelliJ IDEA
GitHub Actions
There is a GitHub Actions action available to get linter feedback in workflows:
Basic Usage
cfn-lint template.yaml
cfn-lint -t template.yaml
Lint multiple files
Multiple files can be linted by either specifying multiple specific files:
cfn-lint template1.yaml template2.yaml
cfn-lint -t template1.yaml template2.yaml
Multiple files can also be specified using wildcards (globbing):
Lint all yaml
files in path
:
cfn-lint path/*.yaml
Lint all yaml
files in path
and all subdirectories (recursive):
cfn-lint path/to/templates/**/*.yaml
Note: Glob in Python 3.5 supports recursive searching **/*.yaml
. If you are using an earlier version of Python you will have to handle this manually (folder1/*.yaml
, folder2/*.yaml
, etc).
Specifying the template as an input stream
The template to be linted can also be passed using standard input:
cat path/template.yaml | cfn-lint -
Specifying the template with other parameters
cfn-lint -r us-east-1 ap-south-1 -- template.yaml
cfn-lint -r us-east-1 ap-south-1 -t template.yaml
Configuration
Command Line
From a command prompt run cfn-lint <path to yaml template>
to run standard linting of the template.
Config File
You can define a yaml file in your project or home folder called .cfnlintrc
. In that file you can specify settings from the parameter section below.
Example:
templates:
- test/fixtures/templates/good/**/*.yaml
ignore_templates:
- codebuild.yaml
include_checks:
- I
Parameters
Optional parameters:
Command Line | Metadata | Options | Description |
---|---|---|---|
-h, --help | Get description of cfn-lint | ||
-t, --template | filename | Alternative way to specify Template file path to the file that needs to be tested by cfn-lint | |
-f, --format | format | quiet, parseable, json | Output format |
-l, --list-rules | List all the rules | ||
-r, --regions | regions | [REGIONS [REGIONS ...]], ALL_REGIONS | Test the template against many regions. Supported regions |
-b, --ignore-bad-template | ignore_bad_template | Ignores bad template errors | |
--ignore-templates | IGNORE_TEMPLATES [IGNORE_TEMPLATES ...] | Ignore templates from being scanned | |
-a, --append-rules | append_rules | [RULESDIR [RULESDIR ...]] | Specify one or more rules directories using one or more --append-rules arguments. |
-i, --ignore-checks | ignore_checks | [IGNORE_CHECKS [IGNORE_CHECKS ...]] | Only check rules whose ID do not match or prefix these values. Examples: - A value of W will disable all warnings- W2 disables all Warnings for Parameter rules.- W2001 will disable rule W2001 |
-e, --include-experimental | include_experimental | Whether rules that still in an experimental state should be included in the checks | |
-c, --include-checks | INCLUDE_CHECKS [INCLUDE_CHECKS ...] | Include rules whose id match these values | |
-x, --configure-rule | CONFIGURE_RULES [CONFIGURE_RULES ...] | Provide configuration for a rule. Format RuleId:key=value. Example: E3012:strict=false | |
-D, --debug | Specify to enable debug logging. Debug logging outputs detailed information about rules processing, useful for debugging rules. | ||
-I, --info | Specify to enable logging. Outputs additional information about the template processing. | ||
-u, --update-specs | Update the CloudFormation Specs. You may need sudo to run this. You will need internet access when running this command | ||
-o, --override-spec | filename | Spec-style file containing custom definitions. Can be used to override CloudFormation specifications. More info here | |
-v, --version | Version of cfn-lint |
Info Rules
To maintain backwards compatibility info
rules are not included by default. To include these rules you will need to include -c I
or --include-checks I
Metadata
Template Based Metadata
Inside the root level Metadata key you can configure cfn-lint using the supported parameters.
Metadata:
cfn-lint:
config:
regions:
- us-east-1
- us-east-2
ignore_checks:
- E2530
Resource Based Metadata
Inside a resources Metadata key you can configure cfn-lint to ignore checks. This will filter out failures for the resource in which the Metadata belongs.
Resources:
myInstance:
Type: AWS::EC2::Instance
Metadata:
cfn-lint:
config:
ignore_checks:
- E3030
Properties:
InstanceType: nt.x4superlarge
ImageId: ami-abc1234
Precedence
cfn-lint applies the configuration from the CloudFormation Metadata first and then overrides those values with anything specified in the CLI.
Configure Rules
Certain rules will support configuration properties. You can configure these rules by using configure_rules
parameter.
From the command line the format is E3012:strict=false
From the cfnlintrc or Metadata section the format is
configure_rules:
E3012:
strict: False
Getting Started Guides
There are getting started guides available in the documentation section to help with integrating cfn-lint
or creating rules.
Rules
This linter checks the CloudFormation by processing a collection of Rules, where every rules handles a specific function check or validation of the template.
This collection of rules can be extended with custom rules using the --append-rules
argument.
More information describing how rules are set up and an overview of all the Rules that are applied by this linter are documented here
Customize specifications
The linter follows the CloudFormation specifications by default. However, for your use case specific requirements might exist. For example, within your organisation it might be mandatory to use Tagging.
The linter provides the possibility to implement these customized specifications using the --override-spec
argument.
More information about how this feature works is documented here
pre-commit
If you'd like cfn-lint to be run automatically when making changes to files in your Git repository, you can install pre-commit and add the following text to your repositories' .pre-commit-config.yaml
:
repos:
- repo: https://github.com/aws-cloudformation/cfn-python-lint
rev: v0.24.6 # The version of cfn-lint to use
hooks:
- id: cfn-python-lint
files: path/to/cfn/dir/.*\.(json|yml|yaml)$
- If you exclude the
files:
line above, every json/yml/yaml file will be checked. - You can see available cfn-lint versions on the releases page.
PyPi: