AWS Console Navigator

Mindset

The CloudWatch console is a micro-frontend SPA embedded inside an iframe (iframe[name="microConsole-Logs"]). This has three non-obvious consequences:

1. window.document is the outer shell, not CloudWatch. All DOM queries must target the iframe's contentDocument. In Playwright, use page.frame({ name: 'microConsole-Logs' }).

2. locator.click() on iframe elements times out. Playwright's locator API hits a 5 s timeout when clicking elements inside cross-origin iframes. Use page.mouse.click(x, y) with coordinates calculated from the iframe bounding box + element's getBoundingClientRect.

3. The results table is its own scroll container. window.scrollBy() scrolls the outer shell. The CloudWatch results table lives in DIV.logs-table__wrapper. Scroll it directly: frame.evaluate(() => document.querySelector('.logs-table__wrapper').scrollTop = N).

When to Use This Skill

• Capturing AWS Console screenshots via Playwright MCP
• Authenticating via SSO and opening a specific account/role
• Getting step-by-step instructions to reach a CloudWatch Logs Insights query, alarm, or metric
• Guiding a user to navigate the console manually

When NOT to Use This Skill

• The target service does not use the microConsole iframe (e.g. S3, EC2) — locator.click() works normally there
• You only need to construct a CloudWatch URL without opening a browser — use aws-cloudwatch-url-builder instead

Navigating to CloudWatch Pages

Logs Insights

1. Services → CloudWatch → Logs → Logs Insights
2. Select the log group, paste the query, set the time range (Absolute), click Run query

Direct URL: See aws-cloudwatch-url-builder for the encoded URL template.

Alarms

1. CloudWatch → Alarms → All alarms → search by alarm name → click alarm name
2. Verify which metric is graphed before capturing screenshots

Direct URL:

https://{region}.console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/home?region={region}#alarmsV2:alarm/{alarm_name}

Metrics

1. CloudWatch → Metrics → All metrics → select namespace → filter by dimension → Graph metrics
2. Adjust time range in the graph toolbar

For full SSO auth steps and region codes, see references/console-reference.md. Full Playwright code snippets are in references/playwright-patterns.md.

Quick Playwright Patterns

Get the frame reference first — optionally cache it for reuse across multiple operations:

const frame = page.frame({ name: 'microConsole-Logs' });
await page.waitForSelector('iframe[name="microConsole-Logs"]', { timeout: 15000 });

Scroll the results table (use frame.evaluate, not window.scrollBy):

await frame.evaluate(() => {
  document.querySelector('.logs-table__wrapper').scrollTop = 600;
});

Expand a log row using page-level coordinates (consider pre-calculating for multiple rows):

const iframeBox = await page.locator('iframe[name="microConsole-Logs"]').boundingBox();
const rowBox = await frame.locator('tr.logs-table__row').first().boundingBox();
await page.mouse.click(iframeBox.x + rowBox.x + 20, iframeBox.y + rowBox.y + rowBox.height / 2);

Anti-Patterns

Each entry shows the BAD practice and the GOOD replacement.

❌ NEVER use locator.click() directly on CloudWatch iframe elements

WHY: Playwright's locator.click() uses accessibility tree traversal and times out after 5 s when targeting elements inside a cross-origin or sandboxed iframe.

✅ BAD: await frame.locator('tr').first().click() → GOOD: calculate page-level coordinates from iframeBox + rowBox, then call page.mouse.click(absoluteX, absoluteY).

❌ NEVER use window.scrollBy() or window.scrollTo() inside the CloudWatch iframe

WHY: window in the iframe context scrolls MAIN.logs__main__visual-refresh (the outer page-level scroller), not the results table. The results table is in a separate overflow container (DIV.logs-table__wrapper) and will not move.

✅ Use: frame.evaluate(() => document.querySelector('.logs-table__wrapper').scrollTop = N)

❌ NEVER query window.document from page.evaluate() to interact with CloudWatch content

WHY: page.evaluate() runs in the outer shell document. CloudWatch content is inside the iframe. document.querySelector('.logs-table__wrapper') returns null from page.evaluate().

✅ Use frame.evaluate() where frame = page.frame({ name: 'microConsole-Logs' }).

❌ NEVER assume AWS/Lambda Errors = 0 means no alarm triggered

WHY: The native AWS/Lambda Errors metric counts invocation-level failures (exit code ≠ 0). An alarm driven by a Logs metric filter fires even when the invocation exits cleanly, as long as ERROR-level log lines were emitted.

✅ Always screenshot the alarm detail page, not the raw AWS/Lambda Errors metric graph.

References

• SSO authentication flow and region codes
• Playwright code patterns for iframe interaction
• aws-cloudwatch-url-builder — companion skill for constructing encoded CloudWatch deep-link URLs