CloudFormation Stack ARN — IaC Resource References

CloudFormation Stack ARN Format

CloudFormation stack ARNs include both the stack name and a unique identifier, connected by a slash within the resource portion.

Example ARN

arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:123456789012:stack/my-vpc-stack/a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE11111

Parsed Components

Component	Value
Partition	aws
Service	cloudformation
Region	us-east-1
Account ID	123456789012
Resource Type	stack
Resource ID	my-vpc-stack/a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-EXAMPLE11111

Stack Name + Unique ID

The resource portion contains two parts separated by a slash: the human-readable stack name (my-vpc-stack) and a UUID (a1b2c3d4-...). The UUID ensures uniqueness — if you delete and recreate a stack with the same name, it gets a new UUID and therefore a new ARN.

Nested Stack ARNs

Nested stacks have their own ARNs with auto-generated names:

arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:123456789012:stack/my-vpc-stack-NetworkSubnets-ABC123/uuid

The nested stack name includes the parent stack name as a prefix, making it easy to identify the hierarchy.

StackSet ARNs

CloudFormation StackSets for multi-account/multi-region deployments use a different resource type:

arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:123456789012:stackset/my-org-baseline:a1b2c3d4-uuid

Cross-Stack References

CloudFormation exports use stack ARNs implicitly. When Stack A exports a value and Stack B imports it, CloudFormation tracks the dependency using the stack ARNs. You cannot delete Stack A while Stack B references its exports.

Change Sets

Change sets have their own ARNs under the changeSet resource type, referencing the parent stack's ARN components.