Introduction

When you need to get CloudWatch metrics graph images, the AWS CLI's get-metric-widget-image command is very convenient.

Example

~ $ aws cloudwatch get-metric-widget-image \
--metric-widget '{
    "view": "timeSeries",
    "stacked": false,
    "metrics": [
        [ "AWS/S3", "BucketSizeBytes", "BucketName", "xxx", "StorageType", "StandardStorage", { "period": 86400, "id": "m1" } ]
    ],
    "width": 1742,
    "height": 260,
    "start": "-PT336H",
    "end": "P0D"
}' \
 --output-format png \
 --output text | base64 --decode > image.png

Running this command will save the metrics image as image.png.

Generated Image Example

How to Check the metric-widget JSON

You can verify the target metrics' JSON configuration by clicking on the "Source" tab when viewing the graph.
This JSON can be used directly as a command argument.

Summary

While it might seem like a minor tip, it's actually quite useful! Try automating it with the CLI instead of manually taking screenshots.