I’m using the Serverless Framework (sls) to deploy an AWS Lambda function. When I run:

sls deploy --stage dev

I get this error:

✖ Error: Please specify a stack name using the --stack option, or persist it in the samconfig.toml file.

Context:

• My serverless.yml already includes the service field:

  service: py-events
  provider:
    name: aws
  

• This worked previously but suddenly started failing.
• I’m not explicitly using AWS SAM, but my project has a template.yaml file.

Debug Logs:
The error traces to getCfnConfig in the Serverless Framework, with the MISSING_STACK_NAME code.

Question:
How do I resolve this stack name error, and why did it suddenly appear despite having a service defined?

What I’ve tried:

• Adding stage: dev to provider in serverless.yml.
• Specifying --stack my-stack-dev in the CLI.

I’m using the Serverless Framework (sls) to deploy an AWS Lambda function. When I run:

sls deploy --stage dev

I get this error:

✖ Error: Please specify a stack name using the --stack option, or persist it in the samconfig.toml file.

Context:

• My serverless.yml already includes the service field:

  service: py-events
  provider:
    name: aws
  

• This worked previously but suddenly started failing.
• I’m not explicitly using AWS SAM, but my project has a template.yaml file.

Debug Logs:
The error traces to getCfnConfig in the Serverless Framework, with the MISSING_STACK_NAME code.

Question:
How do I resolve this stack name error, and why did it suddenly appear despite having a service defined?

What I’ve tried:

• Adding stage: dev to provider in serverless.yml.
• Specifying --stack my-stack-dev in the CLI.

• amazon-web-services
• deployment
• frameworks
• serverless

1 Answer 1

Answer

This error occurs when the Serverless Framework (or an integrated tool like AWS SAM) cannot resolve a CloudFormation stack name. Here’s how to fix it:

1. Ensure service and stage Are Properly Configured

Add stage under the provider in serverless.yml. The stack name is auto-generated as ${service}-${stage}:

service: py-events
provider:
  name: aws
  stage: dev  #