CREATE_FAILED exceeded the limit on the number of resources in a single stack operation

[michael-trinity]

How did you install the Amplify CLI?

yarn

If applicable, what version of Node.js are you using?

22.18.0

Amplify CLI Version

14.0.0

What operating system are you using?

Windows

Did you make any manual changes to the cloud resources managed by Amplify? Please describe the changes made.

No manual changed made

Describe the bug

When trying to run a sandbox or deploy I always get the CREATE_FAILED because of the "exceeded the limit on the number of resources in a single stack operation"

I have about 65 models and 40 functions, and the sandbox worked before I had to delete it and recreate because of massive model changes.

Expected behavior

I expect the app to just deploy like it did before

Reproduction steps

1. create many models
2. create a few lambda function resolvers
3. After a certain amount it will always feel

Project Identifier

No response

Log output

# Put your logs below this line

Additional information

No response

Before submitting, please confirm:

• I have done my best to include a minimal, self-contained set of instructions for consistently reproducing the issue.
• I have removed any sensitive information from my code snippets and submission.

[pahud]

Hi @michael-trinity,

Thank you for reporting this issue. You've encountered a well-known architectural limitation where AWS CloudFormation has a hard limit of 500 resources per stack operation, and your application with 65 models and 40 functions is exceeding this limit.

This is a recurring challenge for users with large-scale Amplify applications. While we've made improvements with the GraphQL Transformer v2, automatic resource limit handling is not yet implemented.

Immediate Workarounds:

1. Reduce model complexity - Consider splitting your 65 models into smaller, more focused schemas
2. Optimize Lambda functions - Combine related resolvers where possible
3. Incremental deployment - Deploy in smaller batches

Long-term Solution:
This issue highlights the need for automatic stack refactoring in Amplify CLI. The solution involves implementing intelligent resource distribution across multiple CloudFormation stacks with proper cross-stack references, similar to the approach documented in AWS CloudFormation stack refactoring.

We encourage community contributions to help implement automatic resource limit detection and stack splitting in the GraphQLResourceManager. This would benefit all users with large-scale applications.

Related Issues: #9762, #13536, #9511 - This is a known scaling challenge that affects many users with complex GraphQL schemas.

[michael-trinity]

@pahud
Thanks for the information,

unfortunately the models are needed as it's an ecommerce platform, I might be able to combine some of the models, but it would cause issues.

I have already combined quite a few of the resolvers and currently in the process of combining even more, but because of auth/rights issues not all of them can be combined.

I'll try a staggered approach after checking to see if lambda function reduction helps.

It's too bad the limit can't be lifted once or twice for a single stack so people can actually deploy larger apps.