Used along with aws cli, which launches a CloudFormation stack, then after run tailstack to follow along with the color coded event output that matches the AWS web console.

gem install tailstack

AWS credentials that have permission to describe CloudFormation stacks can be provided either by:

• setting shell environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
• using an AWS configuration credentials file in ~/.aws/credentials

AWS Region can be set using:

• --region argument option
• in ~/.aws/config for the --profile for which you're launching

A Makefile that contains create, update, delete targets allows an easy way to run tailstack after configuring and launching a stack change.

REGION=us-west-2
APP=appname
ENV=prod
RESORCE_SET=ec2-instance

STACK_JSON=${APP}-${RESOURCE_SET}.json
STACK_NAME=${APP}-${ENV}-${RESORCE_SET}
STACK_PARM=${STACK_JSON}
_create:
	aws cloudformation create-stack --region ${REGION} --stack-name ${STACK_NAME} \
		--template-body file://${STACK_JSON} --parameters file://parmsets/${ENV}/${STACK_PARM} \
		--capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM
_delete:
	aws cloudformation delete-stack --region ${REGION} --stack-name ${STACK_NAME}
_update:
	aws cloudformation update-stack --region ${REGION} --stack-name ${STACK_NAME} \
	--parameters file://parmsets/${ENV}/${STACK_PARM} --template-body file://${STACK_JSON} \
	--capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM
test:
	aws cloudformation validate-template --template-body file://${STACK_JSON}
status:
	@tailstack --region ${REGION} --stack ${STACK_NAME}
list:
	@tailstack --region ${REGION} --list --outputs --parms

Create parmsets/prod/appname-ec2-instance.json which includes an array list of ParameterKey/ParameterValue hashes for your parameter values. Now with that Makefile in place launching and monitoring the output of CloudFormation template appname-ec2-instance.json as stack name appname-prod-ec2-instance run:

make create

If the stack creation is successful it'll return with a value of 0, otherwise a non 0 value will be returned.