AWS CloudFormation

On AWS 24 , BookNest needs a catalog table, a front-end bucket, API functions and the permissions between them. This chapter declares them in AWS CloudFormation 24 templates that you lint, review, deploy as a unit and tear down with one command.

No AWS account is needed: every stack is deployed for real to LocalStack 63,725 4.13.1, an AWS emulator in one Docker 514 container, with AWS CLI 2.37.3 24 and cfn-lint 1.57.0 2,641 on Ubuntu 26.04 225 under WSL2 6 . Its free edition has DynamoDB 24 , Lambda 24 and S3 24 but not RDS 24 or ECS, so BookNest's catalog moves to DynamoDB and its API to Lambda. What LocalStack cannot run is shown from AWS's documentation, labeled "not run here".

What you will learn:

• The CloudFormation engine, templates, functions, change sets, nested stacks, custom resources and macros

• IAM service roles, cfn-lint, cfn-guard 1,388 , SAM 24 , and the CDK 24 beside Terraform 4,548 and Pulumi 55,992

• Deploying and tearing down BookNest's AWS infrastructure, also from GitHub Actions 29

Sections

• IaC and CloudFormation
  • Clicking vs Declaring
  • IaC Goals
  • AWS Provisioning Tools
  • Why LocalStack
• Concepts and Providers
  • Templates and Stacks
  • Logical and Physical IDs
  • Registry and Providers
  • CRUDL Handlers
  • Dependency Graph
  • Rollback
  • Stack Events
• Template Anatomy
  • YAML or JSON
  • Parameters
  • Mappings
  • Conditions
  • Resources
  • Outputs and Exports
  • Rules
• Intrinsic Functions
  • Ref and GetAtt
  • Sub, Join and Select
  • FindInMap and If
  • Fn::ForEach
  • Pseudo Parameters in Templates
  • Readable Nesting
• LocalStack and cfn-lint
  • LocalStack Licensing
  • Hobby Plan
  • LocalStack in Docker
  • awslocal
  • cfn-lint Setup
  • What Runs for Real
• The AWS CLI for CloudFormation
  • AWS CLI v2
  • deploy vs create-stack
  • Stack Events
  • Validating Templates
  • delete-stack
• Change Sets and Policies
  • Previewing Changes
  • Replacement Warnings
  • Stack Policies
  • Termination Protection
  • Deletion Policies
• Cross-Stack and Nested
  • Exporting Values with Outputs
  • Fn::ImportValue
  • The Export Deletion Trap
  • Nested Stacks
  • Modules
  • StackSets
• Custom Resources with Lambda
  • Beyond Native Types
  • Custom Resource Contract
  • Lambda Custom Resources
  • Signaling Results
  • Custom Resources on LocalStack
• Macros and Extensions
  • What Macros Do
  • Writing Macros
  • LanguageExtensions
  • ForEach and ToJsonString
  • SAM's Transform
• Drift and Import
  • Drift Detection
  • Importing Resources
  • Adopting Manual Resources
• IAM for CloudFormation
  • Caller vs Service Role
  • Least-Privilege Roles
  • Permission Boundaries
  • IAM on LocalStack
• Linting and Testing
  • cfn-lint
  • cfn-guard
  • TaskCat and Rain
  • Pre-Commit Linting
• AWS SAM for Serverless
  • SAM Resource Types
  • SAM CLI
  • sam local start-api
  • SAM on LocalStack
  • SAM vs CloudFormation
• CDK and IaC Landscape
  • CDK Synthesis
  • CDK App vs Template
  • Terraform and OpenTofu
  • Pulumi and Crossplane
  • Ansible
  • Choosing an IaC Tool
• Deploying from Actions
  • Self-Hosted Runner
  • Lint, Package, Deploy
  • Real AWS with OIDC
• VPC and Front End
  • VPC and Subnets
  • Security Groups
  • S3 Front-End Bucket
  • Bucket Policies
  • Deploying the Network Stack
• Database and Compute
  • DynamoDB over RDS
  • Catalog Table
  • Lambda over ECS
  • Execution Role
  • Full Stack Deploy
• Costs and Cleanup
  • Real AWS Costs
  • Clean Deletion
  • Resetting LocalStack
• Test Yourself!