We have a JSON file that, amongst other things, contains a set of parameter overrides that we want to pass to aws cloudformation deploy --parameter-overrides:

Listing 1. parameter-overrides.json

{
    "ParameterOverrides" : {
        "Account" : "123456789012",
        "Environment" : "Test",
        "ImagesBucket" : "my-test-bucket",
        "InstanceType" : "t2.small",
        "Version" : "1.0"
    }
}

However, --parameter-overrides expects a set of key=value pairs:

Listing 2. aws cloudformation deploy

$ aws cloudformation deploy \
      --stack-name test \
      --template-file template.json \
      --parameter-overrides \
          Account=123456789012 \
          Environment=Test \
          ImagesBucket=my-test-bucket \
          InstanceType=t2.small \
          Version=1.0

With jq, we can elegantly process parameter-overrides.json and produce a set of key=value pairs:

Listing 3. From JSON to key=value pairs using jq

$ jq -r '.ParameterOverrides
         | to_entries
         | map("\(.key)=\"\(.value)\"")
         | join(" ")' parameter-overrides.json
Environment="Test" Account="NonProd" ImagesBucket="my-bucket" InstanceType="t2.small" Version="1.0"

Plug and play:

Listing 4. aws cloudformation deploy with JSON parameter overrides

$ aws cloudformation deploy \
      --stack-name test \
      --template-file template.json \
      --parameter-overrides $(jq -r '.ParameterOverrides
                                     | to_entries
                                     | map("\(.key)=\"\(.value)\"")
                                     | join(" ")' parameter-overrides.json)

Environment specific overrides

We might have our default parameter overrides in a base JSON file and stack specific overrides in another JSON file:

Listing 5. parameter-overrides-prod.json

{
    "ParameterOverrides" : {
        "Account" : "987654321012",
        "Environment" : "Prod",
        "S3Bucket" : "my-prod-bucket",
        "InstanceType" : "t2.large"
    }
}

When deploying to “Prod”, we want values in parameter-overrides-prod.json take precendence over the values parameter-overrides.json. We again can do this using jq:

Listing 6. Merge two JSON files using jq

$ jq -r -s '.[0] * .[1]
            | .ParameterOverrides
            | to_entries
            | map("\(.key)=\"\(.value)\"")
            | join(" ")' parameter-overrides.json parameter-overrides-prod.json
Environment="Prod" Account="Prod" ImagesBucket="my-bucket" InstanceType="t2.medium" Version="1.0" S3Bucket="my-prod-bucket"

Rock and roll:

Listing 7. aws cloudformation deploy with multiple JSON overrides

$ aws cloudformation deploy \
      --stack-name prod \
      --template-file template.json \
      --parameter-overrides $(jq -r -s '.[0] * .[1]
                                        | .ParameterOverrides
                                        | to_entries
                                        | map("\(.key)=\"\(.value)\"")
                                        | join(" ")' parameter-overrides.json parameter-overrides-prod.json)

How is this working?

• The -r flag: outputs raw strings

• The -s flag: slurps all inputs into an array, in our case producing an array with two elements (one element per file)

• .[0] * .[1]: merges the first two elements of the array

• .ParameterOverrides: returns the value of the ParameterOverrides field

• to_entries for each k:v entry in the input, outputs an array including {"key": k, "value": v}

• "\(…​)": this is the jq syntax for string interpolation

• map("\(.key)=\"\(.value)\"") produces key=value pairs in our expected format (with value enclosed in double quotes)

• join(" ") adds a whitespace between each key=value pair

Why!?

I have been maintaining and migrating a project at work that is using cfndsl with a titanic load of bash scripts. These scripts hackishly use awk, sed, tr, jq. The end result is an unmaintainable masterpiece one iceberg away from sinking. A major rewrite is not possible and not worth it, so I have opted for minor improvements instead.

So much bash can kill you. Ansible and Stacker are better options for more maintainable CloudFormation project.