Create an image workflow

When you create an image workflow, you have more control over your image creation process. You can specify what workflow runs when Image Builder builds your image, and what workflows run when it tests the image. You can also specify a customer managed key to encrypt your workflow resources. To learn more about encryption for your workflow resources, see Encryption and key management in Image Builder.

For image creation, you can specify one build stage workflow, and one or more test stage workflows. You can even skip the build or test stage entirely, depending on your needs. You configure the actions that your workflow takes in the YAML definition document that your workflow uses. For more information about syntax for your YAML document, see Create a YAML workflow document.

For steps to create a new build or test workflow select the tab that matches the environment you'll use.

AWS Management Console

You can use the following process to create a new workflow in the Image Builder console.

1. Open the EC2 Image Builder console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/imagebuilder/.

2. Choose Image workflows from the navigation pane. This displays a list of image workflows that your account owns or has access to.

   Note

   You'll always see the Amazon managed workflow resources that Image Builder uses for its default workflows in your list. To view details for those workflows, you can select the Workflow link.

3. To create a new workflow, choose Create image workflow. This displays the Create image workflow page.

4. Configure the details for your new workflow. To create a build workflow, select the Build option near the top of the form. To create a test workflow, select the Test option near the top of the form. Image Builder populates the Templates list based on this option. All other steps are the same for build and test workflows.

   General

   The general section includes settings that apply to your workflow resource, such as name and description. The general settings include the following:

   • Image workflow name (required) – The name for your image workflow. The name must be unique in your account. The name can be up to 128 characters in length. Valid characters include letters, numbers, spaces, -, and _.

   • Version (required) – The semantic version for the workflow resource to create (major.minor.patch).

   • Description (optional) – Optionally add a description for your workflow.

   • KMS key (optional) – You can encrypt your workflow resources with an customer managed key. For more information, see Encrypt image workflows with a customer managed key.

   Definition document

   The YAML workflow document contains all of the configuration for your workflow.

   Get started

   • To start with an Image Builder default template as a baseline for your workflow, select the Start from templates option. This option is selected by default. After you choose what template to use from the Templates list, this copies the default configuration from the template you selected into the Content for your new workflow document, where you can make changes.

   • To define your workflow document from scratch, select the Start from scratch option. This populates the Content with a short outline of some important parts of the document format to help you get started.

   The Content panel includes a status bar at the bottom that shows warnings or errors for your YAML document. For more information about how to create a YAML workflow document, see Create a YAML workflow document.

5. When you've completed your workflow, or if you want to save progress and come back to it later, choose Create workflow.

AWS CLI

Before you run the create-workflow command in the AWS CLI, you must create the YAML document that contains all of the configuration for your workflow. For more information, see Create a YAML workflow document.

The following example shows how to create a build workflow with the create-workflow AWS CLI command. The --data parameter refers to a YAML document that contains the build configuration for the workflow you create.

Example: Create workflow

aws imagebuilder create-workflow --name example-build-workflow --semantic-version 1.0.0 --type BUILD --data file://example-build-workflow.yml

Output:

{
"workflowBuildVersionArn": "arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:111122223333:workflow/build/example-build-workflow/1.0.0/1",
"clientToken": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE22222"
}

The following example shows how to create a test workflow with the create-workflow AWS CLI command. The --data parameter refers to a YAML document that contains the build configuration for the workflow you create.

Example: Create test workflow

aws imagebuilder create-workflow --name example-test-workflow --semantic-version 1.0.0 --type TEST --data file://example-test-workflow.yml

Output:

{
"workflowBuildVersionArn": "arn:aws:imagebuilder:us-west-2:111122223333:workflow/test/example-test-workflow/1.0.0/1",
"clientToken": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE22222"
}