Description

AWS ECS production health monitoring with CloudWatch log analysis — monitors ECS service health, ALB targets, SSL certificates, and provides deep CloudWatch...

README (SKILL.md)

AWS ECS Monitor

Name: aws-ecs-monitor
Author: briancolinger

Production health monitoring and log analysis for AWS ECS services.

What It Does

Health Checks: HTTP probes against your domain, ECS service status (desired vs running), ALB target group health, SSL certificate expiry
Log Analysis: Pulls CloudWatch logs, categorizes errors (panics, fatals, OOM, timeouts, 5xx), detects container restarts, filters health check noise
Auto-Diagnosis: Reads health status and automatically investigates failing services via log analysis

Prerequisites

aws CLI configured with appropriate IAM permissions:
- ecs:ListServices, ecs:DescribeServices
- elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetGroups, elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetHealth
- logs:FilterLogEvents, logs:DescribeLogGroups
curl for HTTP health checks
python3 for JSON processing and log analysis
openssl for SSL certificate checks (optional)

Configuration

All configuration is via environment variables:

Variable	Required	Default	Description
`ECS_CLUSTER`	Yes	—	ECS cluster name
`ECS_REGION`	No	`us-east-1`	AWS region
`ECS_DOMAIN`	No	—	Domain for HTTP/SSL checks (skip if unset)
`ECS_SERVICES`	No	auto-detect	Comma-separated service names to monitor
`ECS_HEALTH_STATE`	No	`./data/ecs-health.json`	Path to write health state JSON
`ECS_HEALTH_OUTDIR`	No	`./data/`	Output directory for logs and alerts
`ECS_LOG_PATTERN`	No	`/ecs/{service}`	CloudWatch log group pattern (`{service}` is replaced)
`ECS_HTTP_ENDPOINTS`	No	—	Comma-separated `name=url` pairs for HTTP probes

Directories Written

ECS_HEALTH_STATE (default: ./data/ecs-health.json) — Health state JSON file
ECS_HEALTH_OUTDIR (default: ./data/) — Output directory for logs, alerts, and analysis reports

Scripts

`scripts/ecs-health.sh` — Health Monitor

# Full check
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ECS_DOMAIN=example.com ./scripts/ecs-health.sh

# JSON output only
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/ecs-health.sh --json

# Quiet mode (no alerts, just status file)
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/ecs-health.sh --quiet

Exit codes: 0 = healthy, 1 = unhealthy/degraded, 2 = script error

`scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh` — Log Analyzer

# Pull raw logs from a service
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh pull my-api --minutes 30

# Show errors across all services
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh errors all --minutes 120

# Deep analysis with error categorization
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh diagnose --minutes 60

# Detect container restarts
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh restarts my-api

# Auto-diagnose from health state file
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh auto-diagnose

# Summary across all services
ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh summary --minutes 120

Options: --minutes N (default: 60), --json, --limit N (default: 200), --verbose

Auto-Detection

When ECS_SERVICES is not set, both scripts auto-detect services from the cluster:

aws ecs list-services --cluster $ECS_CLUSTER

Log groups are resolved by pattern (default /ecs/{service}). Override with ECS_LOG_PATTERN:

# If your log groups are /ecs/prod/my-api, /ecs/prod/my-frontend, etc.
ECS_LOG_PATTERN="/ecs/prod/{service}" ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster ./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh diagnose

Integration

The health monitor can trigger the log analyzer for auto-diagnosis when issues are detected. Set ECS_HEALTH_OUTDIR to a shared directory and run both scripts together:

export ECS_CLUSTER=my-cluster
export ECS_DOMAIN=example.com
export ECS_HEALTH_OUTDIR=./data

# Run health check (auto-triggers log analysis on failure)
./scripts/ecs-health.sh

# Or run log analysis independently
./scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh auto-diagnose --minutes 30

Error Categories

The log analyzer classifies errors into:

panic — Go panics
fatal — Fatal errors
oom — Out of memory
timeout — Connection/request timeouts
connection_error — Connection refused/reset
http_5xx — HTTP 500-level responses
python_traceback — Python tracebacks
exception — Generic exceptions
auth_error — Permission/authorization failures
structured_error — JSON-structured error logs
error — Generic ERROR-level messages

Health check noise (GET/HEAD /health from ALB) is automatically filtered from error counts and HTTP status distribution.

Usage Guidance

This skill appears to be a legitimate ECS health and log monitoring tool, but the package metadata is incomplete: it does not declare that ECS_CLUSTER is required nor that AWS credentials are needed. Before installing or running it, verify where and how the skill will get AWS credentials (environment vars, AWS config, or instance role) and ensure the credentials are least-privileged (read-only: ecs:ListServices/DescribeServices, elbv2:DescribeTargetGroups/DescribeTargetHealth, logs:FilterLogEvents/DescribeLogGroups). Also: run the scripts in a safe test account or isolated environment first to confirm behavior and to inspect full (untruncated) script contents for any data exfiltration or unexpected network calls. If you cannot provide controlled AWS credentials, do not enable this skill.

Capability Analysis

Type: OpenClaw Skill Name: aws-ecs-monitor Version: 1.0.1 The skill bundle is designed for AWS ECS monitoring and log analysis, using standard tools like `aws` CLI, `curl`, `openssl`, and `python3`. The `SKILL.md` is clean of prompt injection attempts. However, the `scripts/ecs-health.sh` script is vulnerable to potential shell injection via the `ECS_DOMAIN` and `ECS_HTTP_ENDPOINTS` environment variables, which are used directly in `curl` and `openssl` commands without robust sanitization. Similarly, `scripts/cloudwatch-logs.sh` uses `ECS_LOG_PATTERN` in constructing log group names, which could pose a risk if maliciously crafted, although the use of `"${cmd[@]}"` for `aws` commands mitigates some of this risk. These are vulnerabilities that could lead to arbitrary command execution if the environment variables are controlled by an attacker, classifying the skill as suspicious rather than benign or malicious.

Capability Assessment

⚠ Purpose & Capability

Name/description match the included scripts: both scripts call the AWS CLI to list/describe ECS services, CloudWatch logs, and ALB target groups and perform HTTP/SSL checks. However, the registry metadata declares no required environment variables or primary credential, while the scripts require ECS_CLUSTER and implicitly require AWS credentials (via the aws CLI). This is an incoherence: an ECS-monitor needs AWS credentials and at least ECS_CLUSTER declared.

⚠ Instruction Scope

SKILL.md instructs the agent to run the provided bash scripts which (a) call aws CLI to enumerate services, describe services/target groups, and pull CloudWatch logs, (b) perform HTTP probes with curl, and (c) write JSON reports to a local ./data directory. The instructions and scripts access AWS resources (logs, service metadata, target health) that require valid AWS credentials and specific IAM permissions but the skill metadata doesn't declare that. The scripts write to disk (./data) and will read environment variables; nothing else in the shown code appears to contact unknown external endpoints beyond user-configured domains for health checks.

✓ Install Mechanism

No install spec is provided and the skill is instruction-plus-scripts only. No external archives, arbitrary downloads, or installers are executed by the skill itself — risk surface from installation is low. It does assume the presence of aws, curl, and python3 on PATH.

⚠ Credentials

The scripts require ECS_CLUSTER and assume AWS CLI credentials (e.g., via environment variables or AWS config) with permissions covering ECS, ELBv2, and CloudWatch Logs. The registry lists no required env vars and no primary credential. Declaring no primary credential is disproportionate and misleading — the skill will only function if the agent environment provides AWS credentials, and those credentials grant broad read access to cluster, ALB, and logs.

✓ Persistence & Privilege

The skill does not request always:true and does not modify other skills or system-wide configurations. It writes output to a user-configurable local directory (default ./data) but does not request elevated or persistent platform privileges. Autonomous invocation is allowed (platform default) — note that with AWS credentials available the agent could run these scripts autonomously to query your account.

Version History

v1.0.1

Fix security scan flags: declare runtime dependencies, document env vars and write paths

v1.0.0

Initial release with comprehensive AWS ECS production health and log monitoring. - Monitors ECS service status, ALB target health, and SSL certificate expiry. - Analyzes CloudWatch logs for error categorization, container restarts, and filters out health check noise. - Provides both manual and auto-triggered diagnosis scripts with flexible configuration via environment variables. - Supports multiple output modes: JSON, quiet status, and detailed summaries. - No ECS service or log group configuration required—autodetects by default and supports custom patterns.

Metadata

Slug aws-ecs-monitor

Version 1.0.1

License —

All-time Installs 5

Active Installs 5

Total Versions 2

Frequently Asked Questions

What is aws-ecs-monitor?

AWS ECS production health monitoring with CloudWatch log analysis — monitors ECS service health, ALB targets, SSL certificates, and provides deep CloudWatch... It is an AI Agent Skill for Claude Code / OpenClaw, with 1977 downloads so far.

How do I install aws-ecs-monitor?

Run "/install aws-ecs-monitor" in the OpenClaw or Claude Code chat to install it in one step — no extra setup required.

Is aws-ecs-monitor free?

Yes, aws-ecs-monitor is completely free (open-source). You can download, install and use it at no cost.

Which platforms does aws-ecs-monitor support?

aws-ecs-monitor is cross-platform and runs anywhere OpenClaw / Claude Code is available (cross-platform).

Who created aws-ecs-monitor?

It is built and maintained by Brian Colinger (@briancolinger); the current version is v1.0.1.

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aws-ecs-monitor