Set up an alarms dashboard

What you'll build

You'll create a CloudWatch dashboard named CloudPeek-Alarms with one Alarm status widget listing your production alarms. Alarms in ALARM are always listed first, so the one that needs you is the one you see. In CloudPeek it looks like this:

Before you start

• CloudWatch alarms to watch: metric alarms or composite alarms, in any region.
• Read-only access for CloudPeek. The CloudPeekReadOnly policy from the spend guide already includes cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms, which alarm widgets need. If you've set that up, you're ready.
• A sign-in that can create CloudWatch dashboards, such as an administrator.

1. Find your alarms

A dashboard lists alarms by their ARN, such as arn:aws:cloudwatch:us-east-1:123456789012:alarm:prod-api-5xx-errors. It names the alarm's region, account and name.

• In the console: open CloudWatch › Alarms › All alarms, choose an alarm and copy the ARN from its Details.
• With the AWS CLI: list the ARNs of every alarm whose name starts with prod-:

aws cloudwatch describe-alarms \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --alarm-name-prefix prod- \
  --query '[MetricAlarms[].AlarmArn, CompositeAlarms[].AlarmArn][]' \
  --output json

2. Create the dashboard

Like any CloudWatch dashboard, it's defined by a short piece of JSON. Replace the three ARNs below with your own, as many as you like.

In the console

1. Open the CloudWatch console and choose Create dashboard.
2. Name it CloudPeek-Alarms and choose Create dashboard. If the Add widget window opens, close it.
3. Choose Actions › View/edit source, replace the source with the JSON below (with your ARNs), and choose Update.
4. Choose Save.

{
  "widgets": [
    {
      "type": "alarm",
      "x": 0,
      "y": 0,
      "width": 12,
      "height": 6,
      "properties": {
        "title": "Production alarms",
        "sortBy": "stateUpdatedTimestamp",
        "alarms": [
          "arn:aws:cloudwatch:us-east-1:123456789012:alarm:prod-api-5xx-errors",
          "arn:aws:cloudwatch:us-east-1:123456789012:alarm:prod-worker-queue-depth",
          "arn:aws:cloudwatch:us-east-1:123456789012:alarm:prod-api-high-cpu"
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

With the AWS CLI

Download the JSON above, replace the ARNs, then run:

aws cloudwatch put-dashboard \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --dashboard-name CloudPeek-Alarms \
  --dashboard-body file://production-alarms.json

Or, with jq, build the dashboard from every alarm whose name starts with prod-:

aws cloudwatch describe-alarms \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --alarm-name-prefix prod- \
  --query '[MetricAlarms[].AlarmArn, CompositeAlarms[].AlarmArn][]' \
  --output json |
jq '{widgets: [{type: "alarm", x: 0, y: 0, width: 12, height: 6,
  properties: {title: "Production alarms", sortBy: "stateUpdatedTimestamp", alarms: .}}]}' \
  > production-alarms.json

aws cloudwatch put-dashboard \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --dashboard-name CloudPeek-Alarms \
  --dashboard-body file://production-alarms.json

How alarms are ordered

• Alarms in ALARM always come first in CloudPeek, then alarms without enough data, then any it can't find, then alarms that are OK. If you have more alarms than fit, the ones that need you are the ones shown.
• "sortBy": "stateUpdatedTimestamp" lists the most recent change first within each state, in CloudPeek and in the CloudWatch console. Without it, the console sorts alarms by name, and CloudPeek keeps the order they're listed in, still with alarms in ALARM first.
• A small widget shows how many are in alarm and the first three alarms. Medium shows four, each with how long ago it changed state, and large shows nine. Any more are counted as +N more.
• On the Lock Screen, the widget shows how many alarms are in alarm.
• Each ARN names its region, and CloudPeek looks each alarm up in its own region, so one widget can list alarms from several regions.

3. Sign in and pin your widget

1. Open CloudPeek and add the account with your alarms on the Accounts tab, with an access key or IAM Identity Center. See signing in in the spend guide.
2. On Home, open the CloudPeek-Alarms dashboard and tap Pin on Production alarms.
3. Touch and hold an empty area of your Home Screen until the apps jiggle. Tap Edit, then Add Widget. Find CloudPeek, pick a size and tap Add Widget. Medium shows when each alarm last changed; small suits a quick count.
4. New widgets show your first pinned widget. To choose another, touch and hold the widget and tap Edit Widget.

Troubleshooting

An alarm shows a question mark

Either it has too little data for CloudWatch to evaluate it yet, or CloudPeek couldn't find it. Check that the ARN's name, region and account match the alarm exactly: alarm names are case-sensitive. An alarm in another AWS account needs that account added in CloudPeek too.

CloudPeek says access is denied

The sign-in needs cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms. It's in the CloudPeekReadOnly policy and in the AWS managed CloudWatchReadOnlyAccess policy.

The order in the console is different

Without "sortBy": "stateUpdatedTimestamp", the CloudWatch console sorts alarms by name. Add it to the widget's properties to match CloudPeek.

Still stuck?

Email support@cloudpeek.app. Never send us your secret access key.