AWS Technical Essentials Practice 2026 – The All-in-One Guide to Mastering Your Exam Essentials!

To create a Stack in AWS CloudFormation, you must first create a Template. This Template is a JSON or YAML formatted text file that defines the resources and their configurations that you want to create and manage as part of the Stack. It serves as a blueprint that outlines the infrastructure and resources, including EC2 instances, S3 buckets, IAM roles, and VPC settings, among others.

The Template details the specific requirements for each resource, including parameters, output values, and conditions. Once the Template is ready, it can be submitted to AWS CloudFormation to create a Stack, which manages the lifecycle of the defined resources according to the specifications outlined in the Template.

Creating a Stack without a Template would not be possible, as there would be no defined resources or configurations to instantiate. Thus, the Template is a crucial prerequisite for successfully launching a Stack in AWS CloudFormation.