anatomy.template

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion" : "2010-09-09",

  "Description" : "This is stored as the description in the AWS console",

  "Parameters" : {
    "UniqueParameterName" : {
      "Type" : "String|Number|List<Number>|CommaDelimitedList|AWSType|etc...",
      "Default" : "a",
      "AllowedValues" : [ "a", "b", "c", "d", "e"]
    }
  },

  "Resources" : {
    "UniqueResourceLogicalName" : {
      "Type" : "AWS::EC2::Instance|AWS::ApiGateway::Method|AWS::Lambda::Function|etc...",
      "Properties" : {
        "InstanceType" : { "Ref" : "UniqueParameterName" },
        "SecurityGroups" : [ "sg-123456" ],
        "KeyName" : "mykeyname",
        "ImageId" : "ami-1c49ae66"
      }
    }
  },

  "Outputs" : {
    "OutputLogicalName" : {
      "Description" : "InstanceId of the newly created EC2 instance",
      "Value" : { "Ref" : "UniqueResourceLogicalName" },
      "Export": {
        "Name": { "Ref": "UniqueResourceLogicalName" }
      }
    }
  }
}