aws-cloudwatch

name	aws-cloudwatch
description	CloudWatch via AWS CLI v2 (`aws cloudwatch`). Metrics, alarms, dashboards, log groups, log streams, metric filters, Insights queries.

AWS CLI v2 — CloudWatch (Monitoring & Logs)

Overview

Complete reference for aws cloudwatch (metrics, alarms, dashboards) and aws logs (CloudWatch Logs) subcommands in AWS CLI v2. Covers metric publishing and retrieval, alarm configuration, composite alarms, dashboard management, log group/stream operations, metric filters, Logs Insights queries, and subscription filters.

Quick Reference — Common Workflows

Create an alarm on ECS service CPU

aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name ecs-high-cpu \
  --metric-name CPUUtilization --namespace AWS/ECS \
  --dimensions Name=ClusterName,Value=my-cluster Name=ServiceName,Value=my-service \
  --statistic Average --period 300 --threshold 80 \
  --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold --evaluation-periods 2 \
  --alarm-actions arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:123456789012:my-topic

Query logs with Insights

aws logs start-query --log-group-name /ecs/my-service \
  --start-time $(date -d '1 hour ago' +%s) --end-time $(date +%s) \
  --query-string 'fields @timestamp, @message | filter @message like /ERROR/ | sort @timestamp desc | limit 20'
aws logs get-query-results --query-id <query-id>

Create a log group with retention

aws logs create-log-group --log-group-name /ecs/my-service
aws logs put-retention-policy --log-group-name /ecs/my-service --retention-in-days 30

Get metric statistics

aws cloudwatch get-metric-statistics --namespace AWS/ECS \
  --metric-name MemoryUtilization --dimensions Name=ClusterName,Value=my-cluster \
  --start-time 2026-02-11T00:00:00Z --end-time 2026-02-11T12:00:00Z \
  --period 3600 --statistics Average Maximum

Tail logs in real time

aws logs tail /ecs/my-service --follow --since 10m

Covered Command Groups

Group	Commands	CLI Service
Metrics	put-metric-data, get-metric-data, get-metric-statistics, list-metrics	aws cloudwatch
Alarms	put-metric-alarm, put-composite-alarm, describe-alarms, delete-alarms, set-alarm-state, enable/disable-alarm-actions	aws cloudwatch
Dashboards	put-dashboard, get-dashboard, list-dashboards, delete-dashboards	aws cloudwatch
Anomaly Detection	put-anomaly-detector, describe-anomaly-detectors, delete-anomaly-detector	aws cloudwatch
Metric Streams	put-metric-stream, get-metric-stream, list-metric-streams, delete-metric-stream, start/stop-metric-streams	aws cloudwatch
Insight Rules	put-insight-rule, describe-insight-rules, delete-insight-rules, enable/disable-insight-rules, get-insight-rule-report	aws cloudwatch
Log Groups	create, delete, describe, put-retention-policy, tag/untag	aws logs
Log Streams	create, delete, describe	aws logs
Log Events	put, get, filter, tail	aws logs
Metric Filters	put, describe, delete	aws logs
Subscription Filters	put, describe, delete	aws logs
Logs Insights	start-query, stop-query, get-query-results, describe-queries	aws logs

Command Reference

See index.md for the quick reference table and global options.

Group	File	Commands
Metrics	metrics.md	put-metric-data, get-metric-data, get-metric-statistics, list-metrics, get-metric-widget-image
Alarms	alarms.md	put-metric-alarm, put-composite-alarm, describe-alarms, describe-alarms-for-metric, describe-alarm-history, delete-alarms, set-alarm-state, enable-alarm-actions, disable-alarm-actions, describe-alarm-contributors
Dashboards	dashboards.md	put-dashboard, get-dashboard, list-dashboards, delete-dashboards
Anomaly Detection	anomaly-detection.md	put-anomaly-detector, describe-anomaly-detectors, delete-anomaly-detector
Insight Rules	insight-rules.md	put-insight-rule, describe-insight-rules, get-insight-rule-report, delete-insight-rules, enable-insight-rules, disable-insight-rules
Metric Streams	metric-streams.md	put-metric-stream, get-metric-stream, list-metric-streams, delete-metric-stream, start-metric-streams, stop-metric-streams
Tags (cloudwatch)	tags-cloudwatch.md	tag-resource, untag-resource, list-tags-for-resource
Log Groups	log-groups.md	create-log-group, delete-log-group, describe-log-groups, put-retention-policy, delete-retention-policy, associate-kms-key, disassociate-kms-key
Log Streams	log-streams.md	create-log-stream, delete-log-stream, describe-log-streams
Log Events	log-events.md	put-log-events, get-log-events, filter-log-events, tail, get-log-record, start-live-tail
Metric Filters	metric-filters.md	put-metric-filter, describe-metric-filters, delete-metric-filter, test-metric-filter
Subscription Filters	subscription-filters.md	put-subscription-filter, describe-subscription-filters, delete-subscription-filter
Destinations	destinations.md	put-destination, put-destination-policy, describe-destinations, delete-destination
Logs Insights	logs-insights.md	start-query, get-query-results, stop-query, describe-queries
Export Tasks	export-tasks.md	create-export-task, describe-export-tasks, cancel-export-task
Resource Policies	resource-policies.md	put-resource-policy, describe-resource-policies, delete-resource-policy
Log Data Protection	log-data-protection.md	put-data-protection-policy, get-data-protection-policy, delete-data-protection-policy
Query Definitions	query-definitions.md	put-query-definition, describe-query-definitions, delete-query-definition
Log Anomaly Detection	log-anomaly-detection.md	create-log-anomaly-detector, get-log-anomaly-detector, list-log-anomaly-detectors, update-log-anomaly-detector, delete-log-anomaly-detector, list-anomalies, update-anomaly
Tags (logs)	tags-logs.md	tag-resource, untag-resource, list-tags-for-resource