troposphere

About

troposphere - library to create AWS CloudFormation descriptions

The troposphere library allows for easier creation of the AWS CloudFormation JSON by writing Python code to describe the AWS resources. troposphere also includes some basic support for OpenStack resources via Heat.

To facilitate catching CloudFormation or JSON errors early the library has property and type checking built into the classes.

Installation

troposphere can be installed using the pip distribution system for Python by issuing:

$ pip install troposphere

To install troposphere with awacs (recommended soft dependency):

$ pip install troposphere[policy]

Alternatively, you can use setup.py to install by cloning this repository and issuing:

$ python setup.py install  # you may need sudo depending on your python installation

Examples

A simple example to create an instance would look like this:

>>> from troposphere import Ref, Template
>>> import troposphere.ec2 as ec2
>>> t = Template()
>>> instance = ec2.Instance("myinstance")
>>> instance.ImageId = "ami-951945d0"
>>> instance.InstanceType = "t1.micro"
>>> t.add_resource(instance)
<troposphere.ec2.Instance object at 0x101bf3390>
>>> print(t.to_json())
{
    "Resources": {
        "myinstance": {
            "Properties": {
                "ImageId": "ami-951945d0",
                "InstanceType": "t1.micro"
            },
            "Type": "AWS::EC2::Instance"
        }
    }
}
>>> print(t.to_yaml())
Resources:
    myinstance:
        Properties:
            ImageId: ami-951945d0
            InstanceType: t1.micro
        Type: AWS::EC2::Instance

Alternatively, parameters can be used instead of properties:

>>> instance = ec2.Instance("myinstance", ImageId="ami-951945d0", InstanceType="t1.micro")
>>> t.add_resource(instance)
<troposphere.ec2.Instance object at 0x101bf3550>

And add_resource() returns the object to make it easy to use with Ref():

>>> instance = t.add_resource(ec2.Instance("myinstance", ImageId="ami-951945d0", InstanceType="t1.micro"))
>>> Ref(instance)
<troposphere.Ref object at 0x101bf3490>

Examples of the error checking (full tracebacks removed for clarity):

Incorrect property being set on AWS resource:

>>> import troposphere.ec2 as ec2
>>> ec2.Instance("ec2instance", image="i-XXXX")
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
AttributeError: AWS::EC2::Instance object does not support attribute image

Incorrect type for AWS resource property:

>>> ec2.Instance("ec2instance", ImageId=1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
TypeError: ImageId is <type 'int'>, expected <type 'basestring'>

Missing required property for the AWS resource:

>>> from troposphere import Template
>>> import troposphere.ec2 as ec2
>>> t = Template()
>>> t.add_resource(ec2.Subnet("ec2subnet", VpcId="vpcid"))
<troposphere.ec2.Subnet object at 0x100830ed0>
>>> print(t.to_json())
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValueError: Resource CidrBlock required in type AWS::EC2::Subnet (title: ec2subnet)

Currently supported resource types

Duplicating a single instance sample would look like this

# Converted from EC2InstanceSample.template located at:
# http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-templates/

from troposphere import Base64, FindInMap, GetAtt
from troposphere import Parameter, Output, Ref, Template
import troposphere.ec2 as ec2


template = Template()

keyname_param = template.add_parameter(Parameter(
    "KeyName",
    Description="Name of an existing EC2 KeyPair to enable SSH "
                "access to the instance",
    Type="String",
))

template.add_mapping('RegionMap', {
    "us-east-1":      {"AMI": "ami-7f418316"},
    "us-west-1":      {"AMI": "ami-951945d0"},
    "us-west-2":      {"AMI": "ami-16fd7026"},
    "eu-west-1":      {"AMI": "ami-24506250"},
    "sa-east-1":      {"AMI": "ami-3e3be423"},
    "ap-southeast-1": {"AMI": "ami-74dda626"},
    "ap-northeast-1": {"AMI": "ami-dcfa4edd"}
})

ec2_instance = template.add_resource(ec2.Instance(
    "Ec2Instance",
    ImageId=FindInMap("RegionMap", Ref("AWS::Region"), "AMI"),
    InstanceType="t1.micro",
    KeyName=Ref(keyname_param),
    SecurityGroups=["default"],
    UserData=Base64("80")
))

template.add_output([
    Output(
        "InstanceId",
        Description="InstanceId of the newly created EC2 instance",
        Value=Ref(ec2_instance),
    ),
    Output(
        "AZ",
        Description="Availability Zone of the newly created EC2 instance",
        Value=GetAtt(ec2_instance, "AvailabilityZone"),
    ),
    Output(
        "PublicIP",
        Description="Public IP address of the newly created EC2 instance",
        Value=GetAtt(ec2_instance, "PublicIp"),
    ),
    Output(
        "PrivateIP",
        Description="Private IP address of the newly created EC2 instance",
        Value=GetAtt(ec2_instance, "PrivateIp"),
    ),
    Output(
        "PublicDNS",
        Description="Public DNSName of the newly created EC2 instance",
        Value=GetAtt(ec2_instance, "PublicDnsName"),
    ),
    Output(
        "PrivateDNS",
        Description="Private DNSName of the newly created EC2 instance",
        Value=GetAtt(ec2_instance, "PrivateDnsName"),
    ),
])

print(template.to_json())

Community

We have a Google Group, cloudtools-dev, where you can ask questions and engage with the troposphere community. Issues and pull requests are always welcome!

Licensing

troposphere is licensed under the BSD 2-Clause license. See LICENSE for the troposphere full license text.

Release files for troposphere 4.11.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for troposphere 4.11.0
File	Size	Uploaded
troposphere-4.11.0.tar.gz	621.5 kB	Sep 19, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for troposphere 4.11.0
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
troposphere-4.11.0-py3-none-any.whl 730.5 kB Sep 19, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 1.4 MB

Release files / troposphere-4.11.0.tar.gz

Download URL	troposphere-4.11.0.tar.gz
Size	621.5 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`55c12246cbd44f12ad6c27435c9c1175094843cf26b3fd023845e69deb6dec2f`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`04b67869ee6e27e18918424249e3f4b67d113faf7f4c13c7c4ad4e8f2f215248`
Upload date	Sep 19, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.14.7`

Release files / troposphere-4.11.0-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	troposphere-4.11.0-py3-none-any.whl
Size	730.5 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`af50bdf600777938ea0455f765ecef91515dd9bb725527002589c451b7dbd4e3`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`1afa3e43d2663b582ccf71e8ddece110c11cd886b8194b11eadae0c5e0cac766`
Upload date	Sep 19, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.14.7`