cdk: Destroy reports success when there is nothing to destroy

[mcqj]

Describe the bug

Configure AWS profile to an account that has not been bootstrapped with cdk.
Run cdk destroy - cdk reports success.

Expected Behavior

cdk should report an error indicating that the selected stack does not exist.

Current Behavior

cdk incorrectly reports success in destroying the stack.

Reproduction Steps

Create a stack, switch accounts. execute: cdk destroy

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

No response

CDK CLI Version

2.43.1 (build c1ebb85)

Framework Version

No response

Node.js Version

v16.16.0

OS

MacOS Monterey

Language

Typescript

Language Version

Actually, javascript but drop down does not offer that option

Other information

No response

[peterwoodworth]

The CDK has a check here to see if the stack exists, and just returns without making an API call if the stack wasn't found

aws-cdk/packages/aws-cdk/lib/api/deploy-stack.ts

Lines 645 to 648 in f834a45

	const currentStack = await CloudFormationStack.lookup(cfn, deployName);
	if (!currentStack.exists) {
	return;
	}

However as you've reported, it still reports success here after the function returns without doing anything

aws-cdk/packages/aws-cdk/lib/cdk-toolkit.ts

Line 515 in f834a45

success(`\n ✅ %s: ${action}ed`, chalk.blue(stack.displayName));

I think that there are a couple ways to address this and I'd like to hear what people think. I think it would be nice if the lookup occurred before it asks the user for confirmation on if they want to destroy the stack, however what might be an easier way to address this would be to throw an error or print a statement saying we couldn't find the stack specified instead of printing the success statement.

I'm curious if people think that this should throw an error message if the stack couldn't be found, or if there should just be a printed statement. Personally I think throwing an error message to make it as clear as possible would be most helpful.

[rix0rrr]

It depends a lot on what you expect. Personally I would expect at the end of cdk destroy <STACK> for it to be the case that <STACK> doesn't exist, and that is true, so I'm happy 😄 .

At least correctly printing that we didn't do anything because we didn't need to would be a good start.

[ishon19]

I agree, we should throw an error if the specified stack or all of the stacks are not deployed when the command is run, as there is no point destroying non-existant stacks. Can I work on this change?

[peterwoodworth]

Go ahead @ishon19!