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AWS Well-Architected Framework - Runbook & Reference

中文 · GitHub source Facts verified against official AWS documentation: 2026-08-19

Overview

The AWS Well-Architected Framework is a set of best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective workloads in the cloud. The AWS Well-Architected Tool (AWS WA Tool) provides a consistent process to document decisions, answer review questions, and get recommendations for improvement across the six pillars.

Key concepts

  • Six pillars:
  • Operational excellence: run and monitor systems, and continuously improve processes.
  • Security: protect data, systems, and assets; apply identity, detective, and infrastructure protection.
  • Reliability: recover from failures, scale, and meet demand; design for availability and durability.
  • Performance efficiency: use computing resources efficiently to meet requirements.
  • Cost optimization: avoid unnecessary cost and maximize value.
  • Sustainability: minimize environmental impacts of cloud workloads.
  • AWS WA Tool: document a workload, answer pillar questions with evidence, and receive high/medium risk improvement plans.
  • Lenses: AWS-provided lenses (for example, serverless, SaaS, HPC) and custom lenses you define for your own best practices.
  • Review process: regular workload reviews across the lifecycle, with improvements tracked in the tool.
  • Integrations: Trusted Advisor and Service Catalog AppRegistry help gather the information needed to answer review questions.

Common operations (AWS CLI)

# Create a workload and run a review
aws wellarchitected create-workload --client-request-token demo \
  --workload-name prod-workload --environment PRODUCTION \
  --review-owner owner@example.com --lenses "arn:aws:wellarchitected::aws:lens/wellarchitected"
aws wellarchitected list-workloads
aws wellarchitected get-workload --workload-id <workload-id>

# Add an answer and get improvement plan
aws wellarchitected update-answer --workload-id <workload-id> \
  --lens-alias wellarchitected --question-id reliability \
  --selected-choices <choice-id>
aws wellarchitected get-lens-review --workload-id <workload-id> \
  --lens-alias wellarchitected

Best practices

  • Run a Well-Architected review at design time and at meaningful milestones (new major features, scaling events).
  • Attach evidence (architecture diagrams, dashboards, runbooks) to answers so decisions are documented.
  • Prioritize high-risk items; turn recommendations into tracked improvement tasks with owners.
  • Combine pillars with the Well-Architected Tool's improvement plan and review regularly.
  • Use appropriate lenses for your workload type (serverless, SaaS, etc.) and custom lenses for internal governance.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Checks and fixes
Workload not visible Confirm the AWS account/Region and IAM permissions (wellarchitected:*).
Answers not saving Check the workload/lens IDs and that choices are valid for the question.
No improvement plan Answer all applicable questions; the plan is generated from answered risks.
Custom lens missing Publish/share the custom lens and grant access to the workload owners.

Limits

Workloads and custom lenses per account have quotas. See the AWS Well-Architected Tool endpoints and quotas page and Service Quotas console for current values.

Official references