The Well-Architected Tool

The AWS Well-Architected Tool (WA Tool) is a free service in the AWS Management Console that helps you review the state of your workloads against the best practices in the AWS Well-Architected Framework. It provides a structured process for identifying high-risk issues and tracking improvements over time.

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What the Tool Does

The Well-Architected Tool guides you through a series of questions for each pillar of the framework. Based on your answers, it identifies high-risk issues (HRIs), medium-risk issues (MRIs), and areas of improvement. It then generates a report with recommendations and links to relevant AWS documentation.

Think of it as a structured conversation with yourself or your team about the state of your architecture, backed by AWS's accumulated best practice knowledge.

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Getting Started

Accessing the Tool

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console
2. Navigate to AWS Well-Architected Tool (search for "Well-Architected" in the console search bar)
3. Choose your AWS Region (the tool stores your workload data in the region you select)

Defining a Workload

A workload in the context of the WA Tool is any collection of resources and code that delivers business value. Examples include:

• A customer-facing web application
• A data processing pipeline
• An internal API platform
• A mobile app backend

When you define a workload, you provide:

• Workload name — a human-readable identifier (e.g., "Payment Processing Service")
• Description — a brief summary of what the workload does
• Environment — production or pre-production
• AWS Regions — the regions where the workload is deployed
• Account IDs — the AWS accounts involved
• Architecture diagram URL — optional, but recommended for reference
• Industry type and vertical — helps the tool provide relevant guidance

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Conducting a Review

Answering Questions

Once you have defined a workload, you begin the review by answering questions for each pillar. The questions are multiple-choice, and you select all the practices that your workload currently follows.

For example, a question from the Reliability pillar might ask:

"How do you monitor your workload to ensure it is operating as expected?"

You would select all applicable answers:

• We use Amazon CloudWatch to collect metrics
• We have configured alarms for key metrics
• We use distributed tracing (e.g., AWS X-Ray)
• We monitor our application logs in CloudWatch Logs

The more practices you follow, the lower your risk. If you select none or only a few, the tool flags it as a high-risk or medium-risk issue.

Question Categories

Questions are organised by pillar and then by best practice area within each pillar:

Pillar	Example Best Practice Areas
Operational Excellence	Organisation, Prepare, Operate, Evolve
Security	Identity Management, Detection, Data Protection, Incident Response
Reliability	Foundations, Change Management, Failure Management
Performance Efficiency	Selection, Review, Monitoring
Cost Optimisation	Expenditure Awareness, Cost-Effective Resources
Sustainability	Region Selection, Hardware & Services, Data Management

Notes and Context

For each question, you can add notes explaining your current state, planned improvements, or reasons why a particular practice does not apply to your workload. These notes are valuable for:

• Tracking the reasoning behind your answers
• Providing context for future reviewers
• Documenting exceptions and accepted risks

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Understanding Results

Risk Levels