AWS Cloud Formation Stuck in Review_In_Progress

Question

I was trying to set up AWS Code Pipeline with AWS SAM for Lambda using Java-8 as mentioned in the documentations

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/automating-deployment.html (example is in node.js though).

However, my Staging is stuck at CloudFormation Stack is stuck in REVIEW_IN_PROGRESS for a long time. Is there any way to debug this issue?

I don't see any further events coming in console. Is there any specific things to check for?

The template is as follow

$ aws codepipeline get-pipeline --region us-east-1 --name aws-lexbot-facebook-pipeline
{
    "pipeline": {
        "roleArn": "arn:aws:iam::XXXXXXXXXXXX:role/AWS-CodePipeline-Service", 
        "stages": [
            {
                "name": "Source", 
                "actions": [
                    {
                        "inputArtifacts": [], 
                        "name": "Source", 
                        "actionTypeId": {
                            "category": "Source", 
                            "owner": "ThirdParty", 
                            "version": "1", 
                            "provider": "GitHub"
                        }, 
                        "outputArtifacts": [
                            {
                                "name": "MyApp"
                            }
                        ], 
                        "configuration": {
                            "Owner": “xxxxxxx”, 
                            "Repo": "lexbot", 
                            "PollForSourceChanges": "true", 
                            "Branch": "master", 
                            "OAuthToken": "****"
                        }, 
                        "runOrder": 1
                    }
                ]
            }, 
            {
                "name": "Build", 
                "actions": [
                    {
                        "inputArtifacts": [
                            {
                                "name": "MyApp"
                            }
                        ], 
                        "name": "CodeBuild", 
                        "actionTypeId": {
                            "category": "Build", 
                            "owner": "AWS", 
                            "version": "1", 
                            "provider": "CodeBuild"
                        }, 
                        "outputArtifacts": [
                            {
                                "name": "MyAppBuild"
                            }
                        ], 
                        "configuration": {
                            "ProjectName": "aws-lexbot-facebook-codebuild"
                        }, 
                        "runOrder": 1
                    }
                ]
            }, 
            {
                "name": "Staging", 
                "actions": [
                    {
                        "inputArtifacts": [
                            {
                                "name": "MyAppBuild"
                            }
                        ], 
                        "name": "LexBotBetaStack", 
                        "actionTypeId": {
                            "category": "Deploy", 
                            "owner": "AWS", 
                            "version": "1", 
                            "provider": "CloudFormation"
                        }, 
                        "outputArtifacts": [], 
                        "configuration": {
                            "ActionMode": "CHANGE_SET_REPLACE", 
                            "ChangeSetName": "LexBotChangeSet", 
                            "RoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::XXXXXXXXXXX:role/cloudformation-lambda-execution-role", 
                            "Capabilities": "CAPABILITY_IAM", 
                            "StackName": "LexBotBetaStack", 
                            "TemplatePath": "MyAppBuild::SamTemplate.yaml"
                        }, 
                        "runOrder": 1
                    }
                ]
            }
        ], 
        "artifactStore": {
            "type": "S3", 
            "location": “XXXXXX-us-east-1-987802409920"
        }, 
        "name": "aws-lexbot-facebook-pipeline", 
        "version": 1
    }
}

Answer 1

Overview

In your CodePipeline step, you're using the CHANGE_SET_CREATE action mode. This creates a change set on the CloudFormation Stack, but does not automatically execute it. You would need a second action that executes the change set using CHANGE_SET_EXECUTE. Alternatively, you can change the action mode on your action to CREATE_UPDATE which should directly update your action.

One reason you might want to use CHANGE_SET_CREATE and CHANGE_SET_EXECUTE in CodePipeline, is if you want to have an approval step between them. If you are expecting this to be completed automatically, I'd recommend CREATE_UPDATE.

CREATE_UPDATE example

Below is your CodePipeline Staging stage, but using CREATE_UPDATE instead of CREATE_CHANGE_SET. This creates a new stack named stack, or updates the existing one if one with that name already exists.

{
    "inputArtifacts": [
        {
            "name": "MyAppBuild"
        }
    ], 
    "name": "LexBotBetaStack", 
    "actionTypeId": {
        "category": "Deploy", 
        "owner": "AWS", 
        "version": "1", 
        "provider": "CloudFormation"
    }, 
    "outputArtifacts": [], 
    "configuration": {
        "ActionMode": "CREATE_UPDATE", 
        "ChangeSetName": "LexBotChangeSet", 
        "RoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::XXXXXXXXXXX:role/cloudformation-lambda-execution-role", 
        "Capabilities": "CAPABILITY_IAM", 
        "StackName": "LexBotBetaStack", 
        "TemplatePath": "MyAppBuild::SamTemplate.yaml"
    }, 
    "runOrder": 1
}

CHANGE_SET_CREATE and CHANGE_SET_EXECUTE example

Below is an example of how you could use CHANGE_SET_CREATE and CHANGE_SET_EXECUTE together. It first creates a change set, on the named stack, then executes that change set. It's really useful if you want to have a CodePipeline Approval step between the change set, and executing it, so you can review the intended changes.

{
    "inputArtifacts": [
        {
            "name": "MyAppBuild"
        }
    ], 
    "name": "LexBotBetaStackChangeSet", 
    "actionTypeId": {
        "category": "Deploy", 
        "owner": "AWS", 
        "version": "1", 
        "provider": "CloudFormation"
    }, 
    "outputArtifacts": [], 
    "configuration": {
        "ActionMode": "CHANGE_SET_REPLACE", 
        "ChangeSetName": "LexBotChangeSet", 
        "RoleArn": "arn:aws:iam::XXXXXXXXXXX:role/cloudformation-lambda-execution-role", 
        "Capabilities": "CAPABILITY_IAM", 
        "StackName": "LexBotBetaStack", 
        "TemplatePath": "MyAppBuild::SamTemplate.yaml"
    }, 
    "runOrder": 1
},
{
    "name": "LexBotBetaStackExecute", 
    "actionTypeId": {
        "category": "Deploy", 
        "owner": "AWS", 
        "version": "1", 
        "provider": "CloudFormation"
    }, 
    "configuration": {
        "ActionMode": "CHANGE_SET_EXECUTE", 
        "ChangeSetName": "LexBotChangeSet", 
        "StackName": "LexBotBetaStack", 
    }, 
    "runOrder": 2
}