Deploying: stacks & events

create, update, rollback, delete.

You deploy a template by creating a stack — via the console, the CLI, or (in practice) automation. CloudFormation reads the template, orders the resources by their dependencies, and calls the AWS APIs to create each one, emitting a stream of stack events as it goes. The stack lands in CREATE_COMPLETE when every resource succeeds, and you watch the events to follow progress or find the exact resource that failed.

$ aws cloudformation deploy \
    --template-file template.yaml \
    --stack-name payments-network \
    --parameter-overrides Environment=prod InstanceType=t3.large
 
$ aws cloudformation describe-stack-events --stack-name payments-network \
    --query "StackEvents[0:3].[LogicalResourceId,ResourceStatus]" --output table

Update, rollback, delete

Updating a stack means editing the template (or parameters) and applying it; CloudFormation computes what changed and modifies only those resources. The safety net is automatic rollback: if any resource fails during a create or update, CloudFormation reverts the whole stack to its last known-good state rather than leaving it half-built. Deleting a stack removes its resources in reverse dependency order.