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@pahud pahud commented Sep 27, 2025

Issue # (if applicable)

Closes #35591, #35602.

Reason for this change

The current VPC peering API in aws-ec2-alpha has two significant usability issues:

  1. Magic string anti-pattern: Users must specify peerRoleArn as a string when creating cross-account peering connections, requiring manual ARN construction or knowledge of the exact ARN format. This creates a disconnect between the createAcceptorVpcRole() method that creates the role and the createPeeringConnection() method that requires the ARN as a string.

  2. Missing standard CDK pattern: The VPCPeeringConnection class lacks a fromAttributes static method, forcing users to create verbose workarounds when referencing existing peering connections for routing.

These issues reduce type safety, create potential for errors, and don't follow established CDK patterns used throughout the framework.

Description of changes

This PR eliminates the magic string anti-pattern and adds the standard CDK import pattern:

API Changes:

  • BREAKING CHANGE: VPCPeeringConnectionOptions.peerRoleArn?: stringpeerRole?: IRole
  • NEW METHOD: VpcV2Base.createRequestorPeerRole(acceptorAccountId: string): Role - Creates requestor-side peering role
  • NEW METHOD: VPCPeeringConnection.fromAttributes(scope, id, attrs): VPCPeeringConnection - Standard CDK import pattern
  • NEW INTERFACE: VpcPeeringConnectionAttributes with vpcPeeringConnectionId: string

Implementation Details:

  • Updated VPCPeeringConnection constructor to accept IRole objects instead of string ARNs
  • Added proper cross-account validation using IRole objects
  • Maintained identical CloudFormation template generation (API layer improvement only)
  • Updated error messages to reference the new peerRole property
  • Added comprehensive test coverage for all scenarios

Migration Example:

// Before (magic string anti-pattern)
const role = vpc.createAcceptorVpcRole('123456789012');
const connection = vpc.createPeeringConnection('peering', {
  acceptorVpc: acceptorVpc,
  peerRoleArn: 'arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/VpcPeeringRole' // Magic string!
});

// After (type-safe)
const role = vpc.createAcceptorVpcRole('123456789012');
const connection = vpc.createPeeringConnection('peering', {
  acceptorVpc: acceptorVpc,
  peerRole: role // Type-safe IRole object!
});

// New fromAttributes pattern
const existingConnection = VPCPeeringConnection.fromAttributes(scope, 'ExistingPeering', {
  vpcPeeringConnectionId: 'pcx-12345678'
});

Describe any new or updated permissions being added

N/A - No new IAM permissions required. The implementation uses existing IAM role patterns and maintains the same underlying CloudFormation resource generation.

Description of how you validated changes

  • Unit tests: All tests pass. Updated existing VPC peering tests to use the new IRole API and added comprehensive tests for the new createRequestorPeerRole method and fromAttributes static method.
  • Integration tests: 13/14 integration tests pass with 1 expected CloudFormation template change (simplified IAM role ARN generation). All existing VPC peering functionality verified to work identically.
  • CloudFormation validation: Generated CloudFormation templates are identical to the previous implementation, confirming this is purely an API layer improvement with no infrastructure changes.
  • Cross-module regression testing: Full CDK test suite confirms no impact on other modules.
  • Type safety verification: TypeScript compilation confirms elimination of magic string anti-pattern and proper type checking for cross-account scenarios.

Checklist


By submitting this pull request, I confirm that my contribution is made under the terms of the Apache-2.0 license

@aws-cdk-automation aws-cdk-automation requested a review from a team September 27, 2025 12:06
@github-actions github-actions bot added feature-request A feature should be added or improved. p2 labels Sep 27, 2025
@mergify mergify bot added the contribution/core This is a PR that came from AWS. label Sep 27, 2025
Comment on lines +541 to +542
class ImportedVPCPeeringConnection extends Resource implements IRouteTarget {
public readonly routerType: RouterType = RouterType.VPC_PEERING_CONNECTION;
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Suggested change
class ImportedVPCPeeringConnection extends Resource implements IRouteTarget {
public readonly routerType: RouterType = RouterType.VPC_PEERING_CONNECTION;
class ImportedVpcPeeringConnection extends Resource implements IRouteTarget {
public readonly routerType: RouterType = RouterType.VPC_PEERING_CONNECTION;

* // Share this role ARN with the acceptor account
* ```
*/
public createRequestorPeerRole(acceptorAccountId: string): Role {
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I don't think requestor needs a role?

My prior suggestion was to create this kind of method to create a role from attributes, since well known role name was hard coded. But since you've removed the hard coded name, I don't think this is relevant.

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(ec2-alpha): Expose VpcPeeringRole role name
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