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Describe Stacks

Describing stacks is helpful to understand what the final, fully computed and deep-merged configuration of a stack will look like. Use this to slice and dice the Stack configuration to show different information about stacks and component.

For example, if we wanted to understand what the final configuration looks like for the "production" stack, we could do that by calling the atmos describe stacks command to view the YAML output.

The output can be written to a file by passing the --file command-line flag to atmos or even formatted as YAML or JSON by using --format command-line flag.

PRO TIP

If the filtering options built-in to Atmos are not sufficient, redirect the output to jq for very powerful filtering options.

Since the output of a Stack might be overwhelming, and we're only interested in some particular section of the configuration, the output can be filtered using flags to narrow the output by stack, component-types, components, and sections. The component sections can be further filtered by atmos_component, atmos_stack, atmos_stack_file, backend, backend_type, command, component, env, inheritance, metadata, overrides, remote_state_backend, remote_state_backend_type, settings, vars, workspace.

For example:

atmos describe stacks

plat-ue2-dev:
components:
terraform:
vpc:
backend: {}
backend_type: s3
command: terraform
component: vpc
env: {}
inheritance: []
metadata:
component: vpc
overrides: {}
remote_state_backend: {}
remote_state_backend_type: ""
settings:
validation:
check-vpc-component-config-with-opa-policy:
description: Check 'vpc' component configuration using OPA policy
disabled: false
module_paths:
- catalog/constants
schema_path: vpc/validate-vpc-component.rego
schema_type: opa
timeout: 10
validate-vpc-component-with-jsonschema:
description: Validate 'vpc' component variables using JSON Schema
schema_path: vpc/validate-vpc-component.json
schema_type: jsonschema
vars:
availability_zones:
- us-east-2a
- us-east-2b
- us-east-2c
enabled: true
environment: ue2
map_public_ip_on_launch: true
max_subnet_count: 3
name: common
namespace: acme
nat_gateway_enabled: true
nat_instance_enabled: false
region: us-east-2
stage: dev
tenant: plat
vpc_flow_logs_enabled: true
vpc_flow_logs_log_destination_type: s3
vpc_flow_logs_traffic_type: ALL
workspace: plat-ue2-dev
vpc-flow-logs-bucket:
backend: {}
backend_type: s3
command: terraform
component: vpc-flow-logs-bucket
env: {}
inheritance: []
metadata:
component: vpc-flow-logs-bucket
overrides: {}
remote_state_backend: {}
remote_state_backend_type: ""
settings: {}
vars:
enabled: true
environment: ue2
force_destroy: true
lifecycle_rule_enabled: false
name: vpc-flow-logs
namespace: acme
region: us-east-2
stage: dev
tenant: plat
traffic_type: ALL
workspace: plat-ue2-dev

# Other stacks here

atmos describe stacks --components vpc --sections metadata --format json

{
"plat-ue2-dev": {
"components": {
"terraform": {
"vpc": {
"metadata": {
"component": "vpc"
}
}
}
}
},
"plat-ue2-prod": {
"components": {
"terraform": {
"vpc": {
"metadata": {
"component": "vpc"
}
}
}
}
},
"plat-ue2-staging": {
"components": {
"terraform": {
"vpc": {
"metadata": {
"component": "vpc"
}
}
}
}
},
"plat-uw2-dev": {
"components": {
"terraform": {
"vpc": {
"metadata": {
"component": "vpc"
}
}
}
}
},
"plat-uw2-prod": {
"components": {
"terraform": {
"vpc": {
"metadata": {
"component": "vpc"
}
}
}
}
},
"plat-uw2-staging": {
"components": {
"terraform": {
"vpc": {
"metadata": {
"component": "vpc"
}
}
}
}
}
}

Want to go deeper on this topic?

For a deep dive on describing stacks, refer to the CLI command reference. Command Reference