Amazon CloudFront
Overview
Domain expertise for configuring Amazon CloudFront content delivery: deciding when to use CloudFront and how it fits the wider architecture, managing custom-domain certificates and multi-tenant distributions, protecting origins, securing content, and observing traffic.
This skill is a router. Each customer task maps to a procedure file under references/. Read the matching reference in full before acting, then follow its constraints and steps. The reference files are self-contained: each carries its own decision tables, constraints, procedure, and troubleshooting.
Execute commands using the AWS MCP server when connected (sandboxed execution, audit logging, observability). Fall back to the AWS CLI otherwise. CloudFront is a global service; its API calls and the AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) certificates it uses are made in us-east-1 regardless of where the customer's application runs.
Which CloudFront task do you need?
| Goal | Reference |
|---|---|
| Decide whether CloudFront is the right layer, see how it integrates, create a distribution, tune caching, or choose pricing | when to use CloudFront |
| Serve a custom domain over HTTPS, manage ACM certificates, or run many domains with a certificate per tenant | managing certificates with CloudFront |
| Make CloudFront the only way to reach the origin (S3 OAC, VPC origins, origin mutual TLS, security groups) | protecting your origins |
| Limit who can view content by identity, location, client certificate, or auth token | securing your content |
| Get visibility into traffic with standard and real-time logs, and analyze them | CloudFront observability |
| Serve multiple domains through shared configuration with per-tenant customization (SaaS, platform) | multi-tenant distributions |
Routing notes
- Choosing the layer and creating a distribution vs the rest. Whether CloudFront is the right
entry layer, what it integrates with, creating a distribution, caching, and pricing live in the when-to-use reference. The other references assume a distribution exists and configure one aspect of it.
- Protecting origins vs securing content. Locking the origin so it is reachable only through
CloudFront (OAC, VPC origins, origin mTLS) is the protecting-your-origins reference. Restricting which viewers can see content (signed URLs and cookies, geographic restrictions, viewer mTLS, edge token validation) is the securing-your-content reference. They are paired: a content control only holds when the origin is also locked.
- Viewer mTLS vs origin mTLS. Authenticating the client to CloudFront (viewer mTLS) is content
security. Authenticating CloudFront to the origin (origin mTLS) is origin protection. Different controls, different references.
- Custom domain certificate vs Route 53 DNS cutover. Requesting and validating the ACM
certificate and adding the alternate domain name is the managing-certificates reference here. Pointing the domain's DNS at the distribution, including the zone apex alias and any failover, is Route 53 work owned by the separate route53-cloudfront skill.
Cross-service work
Pointing a custom domain's DNS at a CloudFront distribution, or failing over between distributions with Route 53 records, is cross-service work owned by the separate route53-cloudfront skill. Use this skill for the CloudFront-side configuration only.
