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From developer-kit-aws
Provides AWS CloudFormation patterns for ECS clusters, task definitions, services, auto scaling, blue/green deployments, ALB/NLB integration, and monitoring. Use for Fargate/EC2 setups and best practices.
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Provides CloudFormation patterns for ECS clusters, task definitions, services, container definitions, auto scaling, blue/green deployments, ALB integration, monitoring, and cross-stack references.
Creates AWS CloudFormation templates for EC2 instances (On-Demand/SPOT), Security Groups, IAM roles, ALBs, Target Groups, and template structures with Parameters, Outputs, Mappings, Conditions, cross-stack references.
Deploys and operates containerized workloads on AWS ECS, Fargate, and ECR. Covers task definitions, services, debugging with ECS Exec, scaling, load balancers, and image management for AWS container optimization.
Provides Terraform HCL snippets for AWS compute (ECS/Fargate, EKS, Lambda) and storage (S3) with security-first and production-ready patterns. Useful for infrastructure automation.
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Provides CloudFormation patterns for ECS clusters, task definitions, services, container definitions, auto scaling, blue/green deployments, ALB integration, monitoring, and cross-stack references.
Follow these steps to create ECS infrastructure with CloudFormation:
Specify launch type, networking, and capacity settings:
Parameters:
LaunchType:
Type: String
Default: FARGATE
AllowedValues:
- EC2
- FARGATE
Description: ECS launch type
ContainerPort:
Type: Number
Default: 80
Description: Container port
TaskCPU:
Type: String
Default: 256
AllowedValues:
- 256
- 512
- 1024
- 2048
- 4096
Description: Task CPU units
TaskMemory:
Type: String
Default: 512
AllowedValues:
- 512
- 1024
- 2048
- 3072
- 4096
- 5120
- 6144
- 7168
- 8192
- 9216
- 10240
Description: Task memory in MB
Define the cluster infrastructure:
Resources:
ECSCluster:
Type: AWS::ECS::Cluster
Properties:
ClusterName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-cluster"
ClusterSettings:
- Name: containerInsights
Value: enabled
CapacityProviders:
- FARGATE
- FARGATE_SPOT
DefaultCapacityProviderStrategy:
- CapacityProvider: FARGATE
Weight: 1
- CapacityProvider: FARGATE_SPOT
Weight: 0
Define container configurations:
Resources:
TaskDefinition:
Type: AWS::ECS::TaskDefinition
Properties:
Family: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-task"
NetworkMode: awsvpc
RequiresCompatibilities:
- FARGATE
Cpu: !Ref TaskCPU
Memory: !Ref TaskMemory
ExecutionRoleArn: !Ref ExecutionRole
TaskRoleArn: !Ref TaskRole
ContainerDefinitions:
- Name: application
Image: !Ref ImageUrl
PortMappings:
- ContainerPort: !Ref ContainerPort
Protocol: tcp
Environment:
- Name: LOG_LEVEL
Value: INFO
LogConfiguration:
LogDriver: awslogs
Options:
awslogs-group: !Ref LogGroup
awslogs-region: !Ref AWS::Region
awslogs-stream-prefix: ecs
Memory: !Ref TaskMemory
Validate task definition syntax before proceeding:
aws cloudformation validate-template --template-body file://template.yaml
Set up IAM roles for task execution:
Resources:
ExecutionRole:
Type: AWS::IAM::Role
Properties:
AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
Version: "2012-10-17"
Statement:
- Effect: Allow
Principal:
Service: ecs-tasks.amazonaws.com
Action: sts:AssumeRole
ManagedPolicyArns:
- arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonECSTaskExecutionRolePolicy
TaskRole:
Type: AWS::IAM::Role
Properties:
AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
Version: "2012-10-17"
Statement:
- Effect: Allow
Principal:
Service: ecs-tasks.amazonaws.com
Action: sts:AssumeRole
Policies:
- PolicyName: S3Access
PolicyDocument:
Version: "2012-10-17"
Statement:
- Effect: Allow
Action:
- s3:GetObject
Resource: !Sub "${DataBucket.Arn}/*"
Define the service configuration:
Resources:
ECSService:
Type: AWS::ECS::Service
Properties:
ServiceName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-service"
Cluster: !Ref ECSCluster
TaskDefinition: !Ref TaskDefinition
DesiredCount: 2
LaunchType: FARGATE
NetworkConfiguration:
AwsvpcConfiguration:
Subnets:
- !Ref PrivateSubnet1
- !Ref PrivateSubnet2
SecurityGroups:
- !Ref SecurityGroup
AssignPublicIp: DISABLED
LoadBalancers:
- TargetGroupArn: !Ref TargetGroup
ContainerName: application
ContainerPort: !Ref ContainerPort
Set up ALB for traffic distribution:
Resources:
LoadBalancer:
Type: AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::LoadBalancer
Properties:
Name: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-alb"
Scheme: internet-facing
Type: application
Subnets:
- !Ref PublicSubnet1
- !Ref PublicSubnet2
SecurityGroups:
- !Ref ALBSecurityGroup
TargetGroup:
Type: AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::TargetGroup
Properties:
Port: 80
Protocol: HTTP
VpcId: !Ref VPC
TargetType: ip
Listener:
Type: AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::Listener
Properties:
DefaultActions:
- TargetGroupArn: !Ref TargetGroup
Type: forward
LoadBalancerArn: !Ref LoadBalancer
Port: 80
Protocol: HTTP
Configure Application Auto Scaling:
Resources:
ScalableTarget:
Type: AWS::ApplicationAutoScaling::ScalableTarget
Properties:
MaxCapacity: 10
MinCapacity: 1
ResourceId: !Sub "service/${ECSCluster}/${ECSService}"
ScalableDimension: ecs:service:DesiredCount
ServiceNamespace: ecs
ScalingPolicy:
Type: AWS::ApplicationAutoScaling::ScalingPolicy
Properties:
PolicyName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-scaling"
PolicyType: TargetTrackingScaling
ScalingTargetId: !Ref ScalableTarget
TargetTrackingScalingPolicyConfiguration:
TargetValue: 70.0
PredefinedMetricSpecification:
PredefinedMetricType: ECSServiceAverageCPUUtilization
Enable CloudWatch Container Insights:
Resources:
LogGroup:
Type: AWS::Logs::LogGroup
Properties:
LogGroupName: !Sub "/ecs/${AWS::StackName}"
RetentionInDays: 7
Before deployment: Create a change set to preview changes:
aws cloudformation create-change-set \
--stack-name my-ecs-stack \
--template-body file://template.yaml \
--change-set-type CREATE
aws cloudformation execute-change-set --change-set-name <arn>
Family naming for version tracking and immutable deploymentsHealthCheck in container definitions for ECS health monitoringCpu and Memory at task level for FargateDeploymentCircuitBreaker for automatic rollback on failuresHealthCheckGracePeriodSeconds matching application startup timeMinimumHealthyPercent (100) and MaximumPercent (200) for zero-downtime updatesawsvpc network mode for FargateMaxHealthyDuration on capacity provider strategy for Spot interruption handlingSTEADY_STATE failures in CloudWatch for task startup issuesDesiredCount updates during deployment may conflict with auto scaling policies!GetAtt for referencing stack outputs in same templateFn::Sub with stack name for portabilityAWSTemplateFormatVersion: "2010-09-09"
Description: Minimal ECS Fargate service
Resources:
Cluster:
Type: AWS::ECS::Cluster
Properties:
ClusterName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-cluster"
TaskDefinition:
Type: AWS::ECS::TaskDefinition
Properties:
Family: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-task"
NetworkMode: awsvpc
RequiresCompatibilities: [FARGATE]
Cpu: 256
Memory: 512
ContainerDefinitions:
- Name: app
Image: nginx:latest
PortMappings:
- ContainerPort: 80
Service:
Type: AWS::ECS::Service
Properties:
Cluster: !Ref Cluster
ServiceName: !Sub "${AWS::StackName}-svc"
TaskDefinition: !Ref TaskDefinition
DesiredCount: 2
LaunchType: FARGATE
DeploymentCircuitBreaker:
Enable: true
Rollback: true
Resources:
Service:
Type: AWS::ECS::Service
Properties:
Cluster: !Ref ECSCluster
TaskDefinition: !Ref TaskDefinition
DesiredCount: 2
LaunchType: FARGATE
HealthCheckGracePeriodSeconds: 30
NetworkConfiguration:
AwsvpcConfiguration:
Subnets: [!Ref PrivateSubnet1, !Ref PrivateSubnet2]
SecurityGroups: [!Ref TaskSecurityGroup]
LoadBalancers:
- TargetGroupArn: !Ref TargetGroup
ContainerName: app
ContainerPort: 8080
TargetGroup:
Type: AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::TargetGroup
Properties:
Port: 80
Protocol: HTTP
VpcId: !Ref VPC
TargetType: ip
HealthCheckPath: /health
For detailed implementation guidance, see: