(CLI): hotswap support for CloudWatch Dashboards

[jonnekaunisto]

Describe the feature

I'd like CDK to support hotswapping the CloudWatch dashboard resource: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/aws-resource-cloudwatch-dashboard.html

Use Case

When editing dashboard in CDK, I will often make small changes and view them in the console, since its not very apparent from CDK if the setup is correct(similarly to SFN). Hotswap feature would greatly increase the iteration speed, which for our team has been one of the major painpoints of using CDK for dashboards.

Proposed Solution

Call the PutDashboard API: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/APIReference/API_PutDashboard.html

Other Information

No response

Acknowledgements

• I may be able to implement this feature request
• This feature might incur a breaking change

CDK version used

N/A

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

N/A

[skinny85]

Thanks for opening the issue @jonnekaunisto!

Do you know if there's an API in CloudWatch that allows updating the dashboard?

[jonnekaunisto]

Yup the PutDashboard API: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/APIReference/API_PutDashboard.html

But it will also create a dashboard if the dashboard doesn't exist, so during hotswap deployments we probably need to check if the dashboard exists and fail if it doesn't.

[skinny85]

Thanks! I don't think that behavior will be a problem - we only do hotswap for resource updates, not creates, so I don't think there's any need to check for that.

[straygar]

Heya! I'm interested in implementing this, are there other hot-swap PRs I can look at for inspiration?

[skinny85]

Here are some examples (not sure how up-to-date they are with the current state of the repo):

• feat(cli): hotswap deployments #15748
• feat(cli): hotswap deployments for ECS Services #16864
• feat(cli): support for hotswapping Lambda Versions and Aliases #18145
• feat(cli): hotswap for appsync vtl mapping template changes #18881

This search should give you even more examples.