Request Parameters Response Elements Errors Examples See Also

DescribeStacks

Returns the description for the specified stack; if no stack name was specified, then it returns the description for all the stacks created. For more information about a stack's event history, see Understand CloudFormation stack creation events in the AWS CloudFormation User Guide.

Note

If the stack doesn't exist, a ValidationError is returned.

Request Parameters

For information about the parameters that are common to all actions, see Common Parameters.

NextToken

A string that identifies the next page of stacks that you want to retrieve.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 1024.

Required: No

StackName

Note

If you don't pass a parameter to StackName, the API returns a response that describes all resources in the account, which can impact performance. This requires ListStacks and DescribeStacks permissions.

Consider using the ListStacks API if you're not passing a parameter to StackName.

The IAM policy below can be added to IAM policies when you want to limit resource-level permissions and avoid returning a response when no parameter is sent in the request:

{ "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [{ "Effect": "Deny", "Action": "cloudformation:DescribeStacks", "NotResource": "arn:aws:cloudformation:*:*:stack/*/*" }] }

The name or the unique stack ID that's associated with the stack, which aren't always interchangeable:

Running stacks: You can specify either the stack's name or its unique stack ID.
Deleted stacks: You must specify the unique stack ID.

Default: There is no default value.

Type: String

Required: No

Response Elements

The following elements are returned by the service.

NextToken

If the output exceeds 1 MB in size, a string that identifies the next page of stacks. If no additional page exists, this value is null.

Type: String

Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 1024.

Stacks.member.N

A list of stack structures.

Type: Array of Stack objects

Errors

For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common Errors.

Examples

DescribeStacks

This example illustrates one usage of DescribeStacks.

Sample Request



https://cloudformation.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/
 ?Action=DescribeStacks
 &StackName=MyStack
 &Version=2010-05-15
 &SignatureVersion=2
 &Timestamp=2010-07-27T22%3A26%3A28.000Z
 &AWSAccessKeyId=[AWS Access KeyID]
 &Signature=[Signature]

Sample Response



<DescribeStacksResponse xmlns="http://cloudformation.amazonaws.com/doc/2010-05-15/">
  <DescribeStacksResult>
    <Stacks>
      <member>
        <StackName>MyStack</StackName>
        <StackId>arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:123456789:stack/MyStack/aaf549a0-a413-11df-adb3-5081b3858e83</StackId>
        <CreationTime>2010-07-27T22:28:28Z</CreationTime>
        <StackStatus>CREATE_COMPLETE</StackStatus>
        <DisableRollback>false</DisableRollback>
        <Outputs>
          <member>
            <OutputKey>StartPage</OutputKey>
            <OutputValue>http://my-load-balancer.amazonaws.com:80/index.html</OutputValue>
          </member>
        </Outputs>
      </member>
    </Stacks>
  </DescribeStacksResult>
  <ResponseMetadata>
    <RequestId>b9b4b068-3a41-11e5-94eb-example</RequestId>
  </ResponseMetadata>
</DescribeStacksResponse>