Reserved topics

Topics that begin with a dollar sign ($) are reserved for use by AWS IoT. You can subscribe and publish to these reserved topics as they allow; however, you can't create new topics that begin with a dollar sign. Unsupported publish or subscribe operations to reserved topics can result in a terminated connection.

Asset model topics

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/sitewise/asset-models/assetModelId/assets/assetId/properties/propertyId	Subscribe	AWS IoT SiteWise publishes asset property notifications to this topic. For more information, see Interacting with other AWS services in the AWS IoT SiteWise User Guide.

Device Defender topics

These messages support response buffers in Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) format and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), depending on the payload-format of the topic.

payload-format	Response format data type
cbor	Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)
json	JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

For more information, see Sending metrics from devices.

Topic	Allowed operations	Description
$aws/things/thingName/defender/metrics/payload-format	Publish	Device Defender agents publish metrics to this topic. For more information, see Sending metrics from devices.
$aws/things/thingName/defender/metrics/payload-format/accepted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic after a Device Defender agent publishes a successful message to $aws/things/thingName/defender/metrics/payload-format. For more information, see Sending metrics from devices.
$aws/things/thingName/defender/metrics/payload-format/rejected	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic after a Device Defender agent publishes an unsuccessful message to $aws/things/thingName/defender/metrics/payload-format. For more information, see Sending metrics from devices.

Event topics

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/events/certificates/registered/caCertificateId	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes this message when AWS IoT automatically registers a certificate and when a client presents a certificate with the PENDING_ACTIVATION status. For more information, see Configure the first connection by a client for automatic registration.
$aws/events/presence/connected/clientId	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when an MQTT client with the specified client ID connects to AWS IoT. For more information, see Connect/Disconnect events.
$aws/events/presence/disconnected/clientId	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when an MQTT client with the specified client ID disconnects to AWS IoT. For more information, see Connect/Disconnect events.
$aws/events/subscriptions/subscribed/clientId	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when an MQTT client with the specified client ID subscribes to an MQTT topic. For more information, see Subscribe/Unsubscribe events.
$aws/events/subscriptions/unsubscribed/clientId	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when an MQTT client with the specified client ID unsubscribes to an MQTT topic. For more information, see Subscribe/Unsubscribe events.
$aws/events/thing/thingName/created	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when the thingName thing is created. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thing/thingName/updated	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when the thingName thing is updated. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thing/thingName/deleted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when the thingName thing is deleted. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroup/thingGroupName/created	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing group, thingGroupName, is created. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroup/thingGroupName/updated	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing group, thingGroupName, is updated. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroup/thingGroupName/deleted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing group, thingGroupName, is deleted. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingType/thingTypeName/created	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when the thingTypeName thing type is created. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingType/thingTypeName/updated	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when the thingTypeName thing type is updated. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingType/thingTypeName/deleted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when the thingTypeName thing type is deleted. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingTypeAssociation/thing/thingName/thingTypeName	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing, thingName, is associated with or disassociated from thing type, thingTypeName. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroupMembership/thingGroup/thingGroupName/thing/thingName/added	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing, thingName, is added to thing group, thingGroupName. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroupMembership/thingGroup/thingGroupName/thing/thingName/removed	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing, thingName, is removed from thing group, thingGroupName. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroupHierarchy/thingGroup/parentThingGroupName/childThingGroup/childThingGroupName/added	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing group, childThingGroupName, is added to thing group, parentThingGroupName. For more information, see Registry events.
$aws/events/thingGroupHierarchy/thingGroup/parentThingGroupName/childThingGroup/childThingGroupName/removed	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when thing group, childThingGroupName, is removed from thing group, parentThingGroupName. For more information, see Registry events.

Fleet provisioning topics

These messages support response buffers in Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) format and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), depending on the payload-format of the topic.

payload-format	Response format data type
cbor	Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)
json	JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

For more information, see Device provisioning MQTT API.

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/certificates/create/payload-format	Publish	Publish to this topic to create a certificate from a certificate signing request (CSR).
$aws/certificates/create/payload-format/accepted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic after a successful call to $aws/certificates/create/payload-format.
$aws/certificates/create/payload-format/rejected	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic after an unsuccessful call to $aws/certificates/create/payload-format.
$aws/certificates/create-from-csr/payload-format	Publish	Publishes to this topic to create a certificate from a CSR.
$aws/certificates/create-from-csr/payload-format/accepted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic a successful call to $aws/certificates/create-from-csr/payload-format.
$aws/certificates/create-from-csr/payload-format/rejected	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic an unsuccessful call to $aws/certificates/create-from-csr/payload-format.
$aws/events/presence/connected/clientId	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic when an MQTT client with the specified client ID connects to AWS IoT. For more information, see Connect/Disconnect events.
$aws/provisioning-templates/templateName/provision/payload-format	Publish	Publish to this topic to register a thing.
$aws/provisioning-templates/templateName/provision/payload-format/accepted	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic after a successful call to $aws/provisioning-templates/templateName/provision/payload-format.
$aws/provisioning-templates/templateName/provision/payload-format/rejected	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes to this topic after an unsuccessful call to $aws/provisioning-templates/templateName/provision/payload-format.

Job topics

Note

The client operations noted as Receive in this table indicate topics that AWS IoT publishes directly to the client that requested it, whether the client has subscribed to the topic or not. Clients should also expect to receive these response messages even if they have not subscribed to them.

These response messages do not pass through the message broker and they cannot be subscribed to by other clients or rules. To subscribe to job activity related messages, use the notify and notify-next topics.

For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/get	Publish	Devices publish a message to this topic to make a GetPendingJobExecutions request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/get/accepted	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic to receive successful responses from a GetPendingJobExecutions request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/get/rejected	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic when a GetPendingJobExecutions request is rejected. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/start-next	Publish	Devices publish a message to this topic to make a StartNextPendingJobExecution request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/start-next/accepted	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic to receive successful responses to a StartNextPendingJobExecution request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/start-next/rejected	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic when a StartNextPendingJobExecution request is rejected. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/get	Publish	Devices publish a message to this topic to make a DescribeJobExecution request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/get/accepted	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic to receive successful responses to a DescribeJobExecution request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/get/rejected	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic when a DescribeJobExecution request is rejected. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/update	Publish	Devices publish a message to this topic to make an UpdateJobExecution request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/update/accepted	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic to receive successful responses to an UpdateJobExecution request. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs. Note Only the device that publishes to $aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/update receives messages on this topic.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/update/rejected	Subscribe, Receive	Devices subscribe to this topic when an UpdateJobExecution request is rejected. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs. Note Only the device that publishes to $aws/things/thingName/jobs/jobId/update receives messages on this topic.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/notify	Subscribe	Devices subscribe to this topic to receive notifications when a job execution is added or removed to the list of pending executions for a thing. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/things/thingName/jobs/notify-next	Subscribe	Devices subscribe to this topic to receive notifications when the next pending job execution for the thing is changed. For more information, see Jobs device MQTT and HTTPS APIs.
$aws/events/job/jobId/completed	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job completes. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/job/jobId/canceled	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job is canceled. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/job/jobId/deleted	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job is deleted. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/job/jobId/cancellation_in_progress	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job cancellation begins. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/job/jobId/deletion_in_progress	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job deletion begins. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/succeeded	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when job execution succeeds. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/failed	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job execution fails. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/rejected	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job execution is rejected. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/canceled	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job execution is canceled. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/timed_out	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job execution times out. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/removed	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job execution is removed. For more information, see Jobs events.
$aws/events/jobExecution/jobId/deleted	Subscribe	The Jobs service publishes an event on this topic when a job execution is deleted. For more information, see Jobs events.

Rule topics

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/rules/ruleName	Publish	A device or an application publishes to this topic to trigger rules directly. For more information, see Reducing messaging costs with basic ingest.

Secure tunneling topics

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/things/thing-name/tunnels/notify	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes this message for an IoT agent to start a local proxy on the remote device. For more information, see IoT agent snippet.

Shadow topics

The topics in this section are used by named and unnamed shadows. The topics used by each differ only in the topic prefix. This table shows the topic prefix used by each shadow type.

ShadowTopicPrefix value	Shadow type
$aws/things/thingName/shadow	Unnamed (classic) shadow
$aws/things/thingName/shadow/name/shadowName	Named shadow

To create a complete topic, select the ShadowTopicPrefix for the type of shadow to which you want to refer, replace thingName and if applicable, shadowName, with their corresponding values, and then append that with the topic stub as shown in the following table. Remember that topics are case sensitive.

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
ShadowTopicPrefix/delete	Publish/Subscribe	A device or an application publishes to this topic to delete a shadow. For more information, see /delete.
ShadowTopicPrefix/delete/accepted	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when a shadow is deleted. For more information, see /delete/accepted.
ShadowTopicPrefix/delete/rejected	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when a request to delete a shadow is rejected. For more information, see /delete/rejected.
ShadowTopicPrefix/get	Publish/Subscribe	An application or a thing publishes an empty message to this topic to get a shadow. For more information, see Device Shadow MQTT topics.
ShadowTopicPrefix/get/accepted	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when a request for a shadow is made successfully. For more information, see /get/accepted.
ShadowTopicPrefix/get/rejected	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when a request for a shadow is rejected. For more information, see /get/rejected.
ShadowTopicPrefix/update	Publish/Subscribe	A thing or application publishes to this topic to update a shadow. For more information, see /update.
ShadowTopicPrefix/update/accepted	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when an update is successfully made to a shadow. For more information, see /update/accepted.
ShadowTopicPrefix/update/rejected	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when an update to a shadow is rejected. For more information, see /update/rejected.
ShadowTopicPrefix/update/delta	Subscribe	The Device Shadow service sends messages to this topic when a difference is detected between the reported and desired sections of a shadow. For more information, see /update/delta.
ShadowTopicPrefix/update/documents	Subscribe	AWS IoT publishes a state document to this topic whenever an update to the shadow is successfully performed. For more information, see /update/documents.

Streaming service topics

These messages support response buffers in Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) format and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), depending on the payload-format of the topic.

payload-format	Response format data type
cbor	Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)
json	JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

Topic	Client operations allowed	Description
$aws/things/ThingName/streams/StreamId/data/payload-format	Subscribe	The AWS Streaming service publishes to this topic if the "GetStream" request from a device is accepted. The payload contains the stream data. For more information, see Using the AWS IoT Streaming service in devices.
$aws/things/ThingName/streams/StreamId/get/payload-format	Publish	A device publishes to this topic to perform a "GetStream" request. For more information, see Using the AWS IoT Streaming service in devices.
$aws/things/ThingName/streams/StreamId/description/payload-format	Subscribe	The AWS Streaming service publishes to this topic if the "DescribeStream" request from a device is accepted. The payload contains the stream description. For more information, see Using the AWS IoT Streaming service in devices.
$aws/things/ThingName/streams/StreamId/describe/payload-format	Publish	A device publishes to this topic to perform a "DescribeStream" request. For more information, see Using the AWS IoT Streaming service in devices.
$aws/things/ThingName/streams/StreamId/rejected/payload-format	Subscribe	The AWS Streaming service publishes to this topic if a "DescribeStream" or "GetStream" request from a device is rejected. For more information, see Using the AWS IoT Streaming service in devices.

Reserved topic ARN

All reserved topic ARNs (Amazon Resource Names) have the following form:

arn:aws:iot:aws-region:AWS-account-ID:topic/Topic

For example, arn:aws:iot:us-west-2:123EXAMPLE456:topic/$aws/things/thingName/jobs/get/accepted is an ARN for the reserved topic $aws/things/thingName/jobs/get/accepted.