Getting started with AWS CloudFormation Guard

This section demonstrates how you can complete the core Guard tasks of writing, testing, and validating rules against JSON- or YAML-formatted data. In addition, it contains detailed walkthroughs that demonstrate writing rules that respond to specific use cases.

Topics

• Prerequisites
• Overview of using Guard rules
• Writing AWS CloudFormation Guard rules
• Testing AWS CloudFormation Guard rules
• Validating input data against AWS CloudFormation Guard rules

Prerequisites

Before you can write policy rules using the Guard domain-specific language (DSL), you must install the Guard command line interface (CLI). For more information, see Setting up Guard.

Overview of using Guard rules

When using Guard, you typically perform the following steps:

1. Write JSON- or YAML-formatted data to validate.

2. Write Guard policy rules. For more information, see Writing Guard rules.

3. Verify that your rules work as intended by using the Guard test command. For more information about unit testing, see Testing Guard rules.

4. Use the Guard validate command to validate your JSON- or YAML-formatted data against your rules. For more information, see Validating input data against Guard rules.