aws-naming-research

---

title: "Aws Naming Research" sidebar_label: "Aws Naming Research" description: "Research AWS resource naming conventions and constraints for a given service. Use when you need to look up naming rules (length, valid characters, scope), recommended patterns, and uniqueness requirements for AWS resources. Triggers on: AWS naming rules research, resource naming constraints, S3 bucket name validation."

Aws Naming Research

Research AWS resource naming conventions and constraints for a given service. Use when you need to look up naming rules (length, valid characters, scope), recommended patterns, and uniqueness requirements for AWS resources. Triggers on: AWS naming rules research, resource naming constraints, S3 bucket name validation.

Details

Property	Value
Skill Directory	.github/skills/aws-naming-research/
Phase	General
User Invocable	✅ Yes
Usage	/aws-naming-research AWS service or resource type to look up (e.g. 'S3 bucket', 'Lambda function', 'IAM role', 'RDS instance')

Documentation

AWS Naming Research

Procedure

1. Look Up Naming Constraints

For the requested AWS resource type, apply the constraints table below. If the resource is not listed, fetch the official AWS documentation.

Reference: AWS Resource Naming Rules

2. Apply Recommended Pattern

Use the recommended naming pattern from the table below and construct a compliant name for the user's deployment.

3. Validate the Name

Check:

• Length is within min-max bounds
• Characters used are in the allowed set
• Starts/ends with allowed characters
• Meets uniqueness scope requirement

4. Return JSON Summary

{
  "resource": "S3 Bucket",
  "proposed_name": "my-app-data-prod-abc123",
  "valid": true,
  "constraints": {
    "min_length": 3,
    "max_length": 63,
    "allowed_chars": "lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens",
    "start_with": "letter or number",
    "end_with": "letter or number",
    "no_consecutive_hyphens": true,
    "no_ip_format": true,
    "scope": "global",
    "globally_unique": true
  },
  "validation_notes": []
}

---

Naming Constraints Reference

S3 Buckets

Constraint	Value
Min length	3
Max length	63
Valid characters	Lowercase letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-), dots (.)
Must start with	Letter or number
Must end with	Letter or number
No consecutive hyphens	True
No IP format	Cannot be formatted as IP address (e.g., 192.168.1.1)
Scope	Global — unique across all AWS accounts and regions
Notes	Dots allowed but not recommended (breaks SSL). Use hyphens instead.

Recommended pattern: {project}-{purpose}-{env}-{random-suffix} Example: myapp-uploads-prod-a7k3m

---

Lambda Functions

Constraint	Value
Min length	1
Max length	64
Valid characters	Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-), underscores (_)
Scope	Regional — unique within an AWS account and region

Recommended pattern: {project}-{function-purpose}-{env} Example: myapp-process-orders-prod

---

IAM Roles

Constraint	Value
Min length	1
Max length	64
Valid characters	Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-), underscores (_), dots (.), at signs (@), equals (=), plus (+), comma (,)
Scope	Account — unique within an AWS account (global to all regions)

Recommended pattern: {project}-{service}-{purpose}-role-{env} Example: myapp-lambda-processor-role-prod

---

IAM Policies

Constraint	Value
Min length	1
Max length	128
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, dots, +, =, ,, @
Scope	Account

Recommended pattern: {project}-{resource}-{permissions}-policy Example: myapp-dynamodb-read-policy

---

EC2 Instances (Name Tag)

Constraint	Value
Min length	0
Max length	256 (tag value limit)
Valid characters	Any UTF-8 characters
Scope	Account + Region (tag Name is not unique)

Recommended pattern: {project}-{role}-{env}-{az-or-index} Example: myapp-web-prod-1

---

EC2 Security Groups

Constraint	Value
Max name length	255 (group name)
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, spaces, and _.-:/()#,@[]+=&;{}!$*
Scope	VPC

Recommended pattern: {project}-{tier}-{protocol}-sg-{env} Example: myapp-web-https-sg-prod

---

RDS DB Instance Identifiers

Constraint	Value
Min length	1
Max length	63
Valid characters	Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-)
Must start with	Letter
Cannot end with	Hyphen
No consecutive hyphens	True
Scope	Regional — unique within an AWS account and region

Recommended pattern: {project}-{db-purpose}-{env} Example: myapp-users-prod

---

DynamoDB Tables

Constraint	Value
Min length	3
Max length	255
Valid characters	Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-), underscores (_), dots (.)
Scope	Regional — unique within an AWS account and region

Recommended pattern: {Project}-{Entity}-{Env} (use PascalCase for DynamoDB) Example: MyApp-Orders-Prod

---

ECS Clusters

Constraint	Value
Max length	255
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{env}-cluster Example: myapp-prod-cluster

---

ECS Task Definitions (Family Name)

Constraint	Value
Max length	255
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores
Scope	Regional — revision number appended automatically

Recommended pattern: {project}-{service}-task Example: myapp-api-task

---

EKS Clusters

Constraint	Value
Min length	1
Max length	100
Valid characters	Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-)
Must start with	Letter
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{env}-eks Example: myapp-prod-eks

---

Secrets Manager Secrets

Constraint	Value
Max length	512
Valid characters	Any ASCII characters except /, \, @, #, or space as first character
Recommended separator	/ for hierarchical naming
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {env}/{project}/{purpose} Example: prod/myapp/database-credentials

---

CloudFormation Stacks

Constraint	Value
Min length	1
Max length	128
Valid characters	Letters (a-z, A-Z), numbers (0-9), hyphens (-)
Must start with	Letter
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{component}-{env} Example: myapp-api-prod

---

SNS Topics

Constraint	Value
Max length	256
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores
FIFO suffix	Must end in .fifo for FIFO topics
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{event-type}-topic[-{env}] Example: myapp-order-events-topic

---

SQS Queues

Constraint	Value
Max length	80
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores
FIFO suffix	Must end in .fifo for FIFO queues
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{purpose}-queue[-{env}] Example: myapp-order-processing-queue

---

EventBridge Rules

Constraint	Value
Max length	64
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, dots
Scope	Regional — unique within an event bus

Recommended pattern: {source}-{event-type}-rule Example: orders-created-rule

---

API Gateway APIs

Constraint	Value
Max length	128
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{version}-api[-{env}] Example: myapp-v1-api-prod

---

Cognito User Pools

Constraint	Value
Max length	128
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens, underscores
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{env}-users Example: myapp-prod-users

---

Step Functions State Machines

Constraint	Value
Max length	80
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: {project}-{workflow-purpose}-workflow Example: myapp-order-processing-workflow

---

CloudWatch Log Groups

Constraint	Value
Max length	512
Valid characters	Letters, numbers, _, -, /, ., #
Recommended separator	/ for hierarchical grouping
Scope	Regional

Recommended pattern: /{service}/{project}/{function-or-resource} Example: /aws/lambda/myapp-process-orders-prod

---

General AWS Tagging Recommendations

Include these tags on all resources for governance and cost management:

{
  "Environment": "dev | staging | prod",
  "Project": "project-name",
  "ManagedBy": "cloudformation | terraform | manual",
  "Owner": "team-or-email",
  "CostCenter": "cost-center-id",
  "CreatedDate": "YYYY-MM-DD"
}

Uniqueness Scope Summary

Scope	Description	Examples
Global	Unique across all AWS accounts and regions	S3 buckets
Account	Unique within your AWS account (all regions)	IAM roles, policies
Regional	Unique within an account + region	Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, ECS, EKS
VPC	Unique within a VPC	Security groups

References

• AWS Resource Naming Rules
• IAM Naming
• S3 Bucket Naming
• RDS Naming Constraints
• AWS Tagging Best Practices