Sceptre

Spec sheet

Purpose

Sceptre manages the creation, update, and deletion of AWS CloudFormation stacks and provides commands to retrieve stack information.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Support

The documentation directs bugs and feature requests to the project’s GitHub Issues page and community discussion to the #sceptre channel on og-aws Slack.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

AWS credentials

The getting-started guide says Sceptre uses the same configuration files as the AWS CLI to access an AWS account.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

CLI controls

The CLI supports stack concurrency limits for launch, create, and update operations.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Dependencies

Sceptre can pass one stack’s outputs to another stack’s parameters and infer the resulting dependency order.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Deployment workflow

It is designed to run in CI/CD pipelines and is available as a CLI tool or Python module.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Extensibility

Users can define custom resolvers and hooks as Python classes packaged for Sceptre to load.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Hooks

Hooks can run actions before or after stack operations, and users can add custom hooks.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

IAM permissions

Sceptre uses the executing user’s permissions by default and supports configuration for AWS profiles and IAM roles.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Installation

The maker’s installation guide supports installation with pip and use of a Docker image; pip installation assumes Python is installed.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Intended use

The documentation describes Sceptre as designed to run as part of CI/CD pipelines.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Limit

Sceptre requires AWS permissions for the CloudFormation operations being performed, with additional permissions needed for features such as change sets or template buckets.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Multi-account AWS

Sceptre supports working with stacks across multiple AWS accounts and regions.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Parallel builds

The project describes its builds as fast and highly parallelized.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Security configuration

The IAM guidance describes using scoped deployment roles and permission boundaries instead of granting CI/CD systems blanket administrator permissions.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Stack dependencies

Resolvers can pass one stack’s outputs to another stack’s inputs at runtime.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Stack groups

Related stacks can be organized into groups, with commands that operate on multiple stacks.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Template formats

It supports templates written in JSON, YAML, Jinja2, and Python DSLs such as Troposphere.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Templates

It supports CloudFormation, Jinja2 and Python templates configured with YAML files.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Templates from remote sources

Template handlers can load templates from local files, S3, or a web URL, and users can add custom handlers.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Usage

Sceptre is available as a command-line tool or a Python module.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.sceptre-project.org

Where Specifiction places it

• Infrastructure as Code Tools#22 of 317.2