Automate creation of Amazon CloudWatch alarms

Recently I developed a new feature for this Github Action to automate the creation of AWS Cloudwatch alarms.
Next steps I will show you the settings you need to add to your project to automate creation of CloudWatch alarms.

Prerequisites

1- Your project should use the github actions

2- Your user must have permissions to create an OpenID Connect IDP, policies, and roles in your AWS account.

3- AWS CLI installed on your computer to make it easier to create IAM policies, roles, and a new IDP to connect to the GitHub account.

More informations about other features and prerequisites is available at Automate Dashboards Quick Start

Quick Start

Before starting, add the code snipet to your Github Actions file:

#... before code

# *** ADD THE CODE SNIPET BELOW ***
jobs:
  AssumeRoleAndCallIdentity:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Add this step to authenticate on the AWS account 
      - name: configure aws credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1.7.0
        with:
          role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::AWS_ACCOUNT_ID:role/to_enable_creating_dashbaords
          role-session-name: GitHub_to_AWS_via_FederatedOIDC
          aws-region: ${{ env.AWS_REGION }}

      # Add this step to load the github action
      - name: create dash
        env: 
          ACTION_NAME: ${{ secrets.ACTION_NAME }} # Create a new environment in your repository with the SNS ARN value
        uses: "JonasBarros1998/automate-dashboards@latest"

#... after code

The full Github workflow file should look similar to this:

# File location: .github/workflows/action.yml
name: Connect to an AWS role from a GitHub repository and install the action to create dashbaord in the CloudWatch

# Execute the action when the user opens a new issue
on:
  issues:
    types: [opened]

# Change the region to your current region
env:
  AWS_REGION: "us-east-1"

permissions:
  id-token: write
  contents: read

# *** ADD THE CODE SNIPPET BELOW ***
jobs:
  AssumeRoleAndCallIdentity:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Add this step to authenticate with AWS account 
      - name: configure aws credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1.7.0
        with:
          role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::AWS_ACCOUNT_ID:role/to_enable_creating_dashbaords
          role-session-name: GitHub_to_AWS_via_FederatedOIDC
          aws-region: ${{ env.AWS_REGION }}

      # Add this step to load the Github Action
      - name: create dash
        env: 
          ACTION_NAME: ${{ secrets.ACTION_NAME }} # Create a new environment in your repository with the SNS ARN value
        uses: "JonasBarros1998/automate-dashboards@latest"

${{ secrets.ACTION_NAME }}: Add a new repository secret to your Github repository with your SNS ARN value. Create an SNS topic to send notifications to you when an alarm status is triggered.

**If your project is public, we highly recommend creating a Github repository secret to safely store the ARN value of your SNS topic.

How to execute the action to create alarms in AWS CloudWatch alarms

To automate AWS CloudWatch Alarms, you need to open a new issue with the title Create Dashboard. In body of the issue, add the JSON configuration specifyng the settings for your new alarms.

For example, you can send this json if you want to create a new alarm for an AWS Lambda.

{
  "title": "dashboard-services",
  "region": "us-east-1",
  "services": [
    {
      "enable": false,
      "serviceName": "change-data-capture",
      "serviceType": "Lambda",
      "alarms": [
        {
          "metric": "Duration",
          "period": 600, 
          "statistic": "Average",
          "condition": "GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold",
          "threshold": 1
        },
        {
          "metric": "Invocations",
          "period": 600, 
          "statistic": "Sum",
          "condition": "LessThanOrEqualToThreshold",
          "threshold": 1
        },
        {
          "metric": "Errors",
          "period": 600, 
          "statistic": "Sum",
          "condition": "GreaterThanThreshold",
          "threshold": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

If you wish to add 2 or more services, use the JSON format below:

{
    "title": "dashboard-services",
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "services": [
        {
            "enable": false,
            "serviceName": "change-data-capture",
            "serviceType": "Lambda",
            "alarms": [
                {
                    "metric": "Duration",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Average",
                    "condition": "GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                },
                {
                    "metric": "Invocations",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Sum",
                    "condition": "LessThanOrEqualToThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                },
                {
                    "metric": "Errors",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Sum",
                    "condition": "GreaterThanThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "enable": true,
            "serviceName": "dashboard",
            "serviceType": "Dynamodb",
            "alarms": [
                {
                    "metric": "ConsumedReadCapacityUnits",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Sum",
                    "condition": "GreaterThanThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                },
                {
                    "metric": "ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Sum",
                    "condition": "GreaterThanThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "enable": false,
            "serviceName": "my-topic-dashboards",
            "serviceType": "SNS",
            "alarms": [
                {
                    "metric": "NumberOfNotificationsFailed",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Sum",
                    "condition": "GreaterThanThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                },
                {
                    "metric": "NumberOfMessagesPublished",
                    "period": 600,
                    "statistic": "Sum",
                    "condition": "GreaterThanThreshold",
                    "threshold": 1
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Yout opened issue should should look similar to this example

More informations about the JSON attributes

enable:
  description: If set `true`, it enables the creation of a new CloudWatch dashboard, but if to set `false`, the action will create a new CloudWatch alarm instead. 
  type: boolean
  accept values: true or false

metric: 
  description: The metric name for the CloudWatch alarm
  type: String
  accept values: NumberOfObjects, BucketSizeBytes, NumberOfMessagesSent, NumberOfMessagesReceiver, NumberEmptyMessages, NumberOfNotificationsFailed, NumberOfMessagesPublished, Duration, Invocations, Errors, ConsumedReadCapacityUnits, ConsumedWriteCapacityUnits, CPUUtilization, StatusCheckFailed_Instance.

period:
  description: To monitoring period specified in seconds
  type: Integer
  requiriment values: Any value greather than 0. For example 600 seconds is equivalent to 10 minutes

statistic: 
  description: The metric statistic
  type: String
  requiriment values: We currently accept the `Sum` value. 

condition: 
  decsription: The alarm condition. If the condition is met, the alarm triggers and sends a notification to the specified SNS topic.
  type: String 
  requiriment values: "GreaterThanThreshold", "LessThanOrEqualToThreshold", "GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold", "LessThanLowerThreshold"