This component is responsible for creating or importing a single AWS Account within an AWS Organization.

Unlike the monolithic account component which manages the entire organization hierarchy, this component follows the single-resource pattern - it only manages a single AWS account.

• Single-resource pattern: Manages exactly one AWS account per component instance
• Conditional import blocks (OpenTofu/Terraform 1.7+): Easily import existing accounts into Terraform state
• Independent lifecycle: Each account can be managed independently without affecting others
• Simple configuration: Minimal variables required for account creation

Tip

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Example of running atmos to manage infrastructure from our Quick Start tutorial.

Stack Level: Global (deployed in the management/root account)

This component creates or imports a single AWS account. For managing the entire organization hierarchy, see the companion components: aws-organization, aws-organizational-unit, aws-account-settings, and aws-scp.

components:
  terraform:
    aws-account/core-analytics:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
      vars:
        name: core-analytics
        account_email: "aws+myorg-core-analytics@example.com"
        parent_id: "ou-xxxx-xxxxxxxx"

Reference the parent OU dynamically using Atmos remote state:

components:
  terraform:
    aws-account/core-analytics:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
      vars:
        name: core-analytics
        account_email: "aws+myorg-core-analytics@example.com"
        parent_id: !terraform.output aws-organizational-unit/core organizational_unit_id

To import an existing AWS account into Terraform state:

components:
  terraform:
    aws-account/core-analytics:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
      vars:
        name: core-analytics
        account_email: "aws+myorg-core-analytics@example.com"
        parent_id: "ou-xxxx-xxxxxxxx"
        import_account_id: "123456789012"

After the import succeeds, you can remove the import_account_id variable.

Create a defaults file for consistent configuration:

# stacks/catalog/aws-account/defaults.yaml
components:
  terraform:
    aws-account/defaults:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
        type: abstract
      vars:
        enabled: true
        iam_user_access_to_billing: DENY
        close_on_deletion: false

Then inherit from defaults:

# stacks/orgs/myorg/core/root/global-region.yaml
import:
  - catalog/aws-account/defaults

components:
  terraform:
    aws-account/core-analytics:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
        inherits:
          - aws-account/defaults
      vars:
        name: core-analytics
        account_email: "aws+myorg-core-analytics@example.com"
        parent_id: !terraform.output aws-organizational-unit/core organizational_unit_id

components:
  terraform:
    # Core OU Accounts
    aws-account/core-analytics:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
        inherits:
          - aws-account/defaults
      vars:
        name: core-analytics
        account_email: "aws+myorg-core-analytics@example.com"
        parent_id: !terraform.output aws-organizational-unit/core organizational_unit_id
        import_account_id: "111111111111"

    aws-account/core-security:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
        inherits:
          - aws-account/defaults
      vars:
        name: core-security
        account_email: "aws+myorg-core-security@example.com"
        parent_id: !terraform.output aws-organizational-unit/core organizational_unit_id
        import_account_id: "222222222222"

    # Platform OU Accounts
    aws-account/plat-dev:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
        inherits:
          - aws-account/defaults
      vars:
        name: plat-dev
        account_email: "aws+myorg-plat-dev@example.com"
        parent_id: !terraform.output aws-organizational-unit/plat organizational_unit_id
        import_account_id: "333333333333"

    aws-account/plat-prod:
      metadata:
        component: aws-account
        inherits:
          - aws-account/defaults
      vars:
        name: plat-prod
        account_email: "aws+myorg-plat-prod@example.com"
        parent_id: !terraform.output aws-organizational-unit/plat organizational_unit_id
        import_account_id: "444444444444"

This component is part of a suite of single-resource components for AWS Organizations:

{
  "additional_tag_map": {},
  "attributes": [],
  "delimiter": null,
  "descriptor_formats": {},
  "enabled": true,
  "environment": null,
  "id_length_limit": null,
  "label_key_case": null,
  "label_order": [],
  "label_value_case": null,
  "labels_as_tags": [
    "unset"
  ],
  "name": null,
  "namespace": null,
  "regex_replace_chars": null,
  "stage": null,
  "tags": {},
  "tenant": null
}

[
  "default"
]

Check out these related projects.

• Cloud Posse Terraform Modules - Our collection of reusable Terraform modules used by our reference architectures.
• Atmos - Atmos is like docker-compose but for your infrastructure

For additional context, refer to some of these links.

• cloudposse-terraform-components - Cloud Posse's upstream components
• AWS Organizations Accounts - AWS Organizations account management documentation
• OpenTofu Import Blocks - OpenTofu 1.7+ import block documentation

This project is under active development, and we encourage contributions from our community.

Many thanks to our outstanding contributors:

For 🐛 bug reports & feature requests, please use the issue tracker.

In general, PRs are welcome. We follow the typical "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.

1. Review our Code of Conduct and Contributor Guidelines.
2. Fork the repo on GitHub
3. Clone the project to your own machine
4. Commit changes to your own branch
5. Push your work back up to your fork
6. Submit a Pull Request so that we can review your changes

NOTE: Be sure to merge the latest changes from "upstream" before making a pull request!

We use Atmos to streamline how Terraform tests are run. It centralizes configuration and wraps common test workflows with easy-to-use commands.

All tests are located in the test/ folder.

Under the hood, tests are powered by Terratest together with our internal Test Helpers library, providing robust infrastructure validation.

Setup dependencies:

• Install Atmos (installation guide)
• Install Go 1.24+ or newer
• Install Terraform or OpenTofu

To run tests:

• Run all tests:

  atmos test run

• Clean up test artifacts:

  atmos test clean

• Explore additional test options:

  atmos test --help

The configuration for test commands is centrally managed. To review what's being imported, see the atmos.yaml file.

Learn more about our automated testing in our documentation or implementing custom commands with atmos.

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