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AWS CloudFormation
User Guide (API Version 2010-05-15)

AWS Documentation » AWS CloudFormation » User Guide » Working with Stacks » Using the AWS CloudFormation Console » Creating Quick-Create Links for Stacks

Creating Quick-Create Links for Stacks

Use quick-create links to get stacks up and running quickly from the AWS CloudFormation console. You can specify the template URL, stack name, and template parameters in URL query parameters to prepopulate a single Create Stack Wizard page. This simplifies the process of creating stacks by reducing the number of wizard pages and the amount of user input that's required. It also optimizes template reuse because you can create multiple URLs that specify different values for the same template.

AWS CloudFormation supports the following URL query parameters:

templateURL

Required. Specifies the URL of the stack template. URL encoding is supported, but it isn't required.

stackName

Optional. Specifies the stack name.A stack name can contain only alphanumeric characters (case-sensitive) and hyphens. It must start with an alphabetic character and can't be longer than 128 characters.

Any parameter in the stack template that isn't a NoEcho parameter type

Optional. Use the format param_parameterName to specify template parameters in the URL query string. The URL parameter must include the param_ prefix, and the parameter name segment must exactly match the parameter name in the template. For example: param_DBName.

AWS CloudFormation ignores parameters that don't exist in the template and NoEcho parameter types (typically, user names and passwords). URL parameters override default values that are specified in the template. You can include as many parameters as needed. For more information about NoEcho parameter types, see Parameters.

All query parameter names are case sensitive. Users can overwrite these values in the console before creating the stack.

The following example is based on the WordPress basic single instance sample template. The query string includes the required templateURL parameter and the stackName, DBName, InstanceType, and KeyName parameters.

The following URL has line breaks added for clarity.

https://eu-central-1.console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/home?region=eu-central-1#/stacks/create/review
   ?templateURL=https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/cloudformation-templates-eu-central-1/WordPress_Single_Instance.template
   &stackName=MyWPBlog
   &param_DBName=mywpblog
   &param_InstanceType=t2.medium
   &param_KeyName=MyKeyPair

The following URL includes the same parameters as the previous example, but the line breaks are removed. This is the actual URL format. 

https://eu-central-1.console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/home?region=eu-central-1#/stacks/create/review?templateURL=https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/cloudformation-templates-eu-central-1/WordPress_Single_Instance.template&stackName=MyWPBlog&param_DBName=mywpblog&param_InstanceType=t2.medium&param_KeyName=MyKeyPair

The example URL opens the Create Stack Wizard in the console, with the supplied values automatically used for the parameters.

Parameters in the Create Stack Wizard that are prepopulated with the values from the URL query string.