AWS cloud formation Template- providing Tags for the stack in the template

Question

We wanted to use company specific Tags to the resources that we create in AWS for billing purposes. I am using a cloud formation template to spin up our Elasticbeanstalk instance and other project dependent resources. When I use the CloudFormation console to create a stack it asks me for Tags in the page after parameters. I have to manually input the Tags for that stack. However is there a way to specify those Tags (Tags for the stack) with in the cloud formation template itself? That way the Tag gets propagated to the other resources? I know that the cloud formation automatically tags the resources with the stack name. But we need company specific tags to bill separate departments.

Answer 1

In the template anatomy, you can't set stack-level tags directly. However you can create a wrapper template, having a single resource of AWS::CloudFormation::Stack.

You can define stack-level tags on that resource:

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Description": "WrapperTemplate",

  "Resources": {
    "WrappedStackWithStackLevelTags": {
      "Type" : "AWS::CloudFormation::Stack",
      "Properties" : {
        "Tags" : [ { "Key" : "Stage", "Value" : "QA" } ],
        "TemplateURL" : "your-original-template-s3-url"
      }
    }
  }
}

Answer 2

When launching AWS CloudFormation, the tags being requested will be applied to the CloudFormation Stack itself and (where possible) will also be propagated to the resources launched by the Stack.

These tags can be passed to the CreateStack API call, or from the CLI:

• See: create-stack CLI documentation

These tags are applied to the whole Stack and aren't included in the CloudFormation template.

However, CloudFormation templates can include tags for specific resources that are being created. For example, when launching Amazon EC2 instances, tags can be included in the template:

"MyInstance" : {
  "Type" : "AWS::EC2::Instance",
  "Properties" : {
    "SecurityGroups" : [{ "Ref" : "MySecurityGroup" }],
    "AvailabilityZone" : "us-east-1a",
    "ImageId" : "ami-20b65349",
    "Volumes" : [{
      "VolumeId" : { "Ref" : "MyEBS" },
      "Device" : "/dev/sdk"
    }],
    "Tags" : [{
      "Key" : "Stage",
      "Value" : "QA"
    }]
  }
}

Answer 3

Contrary to what @lalyos says, you don't need to use nested stacks for this, just provide the tags that should apply to all resources as stack level tags.

These stack-level tags can be specified whether running the stack on the console or via CLI.

CLI example:

aws cloudformation create-stack --stack-name my-stack-name \
 --template-body file://path-to-template-file.yaml \
 --parameters ParameterKey=param1key,ParameterValue=param1value \
 --tags Key=tag1key,Value=tag1value \
        Key=tag2key,Value=tag2value \
        Key=tag3key,Value=tag3value 

... and generally add as many tags as you need, using the same format and allowing spaces between tag key-value pairs

See: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/cfn-console-add-tags.html