How to Import an AWS CloudWatch Dashboard into Terraform

Import AWS CloudWatch Dashboard with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Amazon CloudWatch resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live AWS CloudWatch Dashboard to managed Terraform.

terraback scan all aws --region us-east-1

terraback aws import --method bulk

The Terraform import block

Terraback emits a Terraform 1.5+ import block like the one below. Because the block lives in your configuration, the import is reviewable in a pull request and repeatable across environments.

import {
  to = aws_cloudwatch_dashboard.prod
  id = "prod-overview"
}

Example aws_cloudwatch_dashboard configuration

Here is a realistic AWS CloudWatch Dashboard block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "aws_cloudwatch_dashboard" "prod" {
  dashboard_name = "prod-overview"

  dashboard_body = jsonencode({
    widgets = [{
      type   = "metric"
      width  = 12
      height = 6
      properties = {
        metrics = [["AWS/EC2", "CPUUtilization"]]
        region  = "us-east-1"
      }
    }]
  })
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS CloudWatch Dashboard

• Import by the dashboard name; there is no ARN-based import for dashboards.
• dashboard_body is a JSON blob that AWS normalizes (re-ordering keys and adding defaults), so expect to align it exactly to avoid a perpetual diff.
• Dashboard names are unique per account and region, and CloudWatch dashboards are a global console view but are still managed per region.
• The metrics referenced inside the body are not Terraform-managed; the dashboard only renders them.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the aws_cloudwatch_dashboard block by hand, then run terraform import aws_cloudwatch_dashboard.example <import-id> for every resource, one at a time. That works for a handful of resources, but it does not scale: you author all the HCL yourself and repeat the command for each item. Terraback generates the HCL and the import blocks for your whole account in one pass.

Import other AWS resources