Free plan Signups are open now. The full audytx engine — Terraform and CloudFormation — is live. The Free plan is 100 scans a month and stays free — paid tiers arrive Nov 01, 2026 from $20/month for unlimited repositories. Try it on your own code.

Launch template keeps an EBS volume after instance termination

AWS_OPS_052 LOW Cost

What it checks

Launch template keeps an EBS volume after instance termination

Where it applies

Terraform: aws_launch_template

CloudFormation: AWS::EC2::LaunchTemplate

How to fix it

  1. Confirm whether retention is intentional, including snapshot, recovery, forensic and reattach workflows. Check actual instance or fleet use and, if applicable, ASG replacement behavior and cleanup ownership. Preserve required data before changing retention; the template may be unused or associated with zero-capacity launchers.
  2. If retention is unintended, edit only the existing mapping(s) whose EBS property is false: Terraform delete_on_termination or CloudFormation Ebs.DeleteOnTermination. Set that property true after validating the intended lifecycle, preserving the existing device name, capacity, encryption, snapshot and other settings. Do not add a replacement mapping. Changing the template does not delete previously retained volumes; review those separately before cleanup.

Frameworks

These mappings are advisory, not an attestation of compliance.

Vendor documentation

All rules