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latestOpenAPI 3.0.0Apache 2.0 License2026-07-1737274251.5 KB

Provides information about a state machine's definition, its IAM role Amazon Resource Name (ARN), and configuration.

A qualified state machine ARN can either refer to a Distributed Map state defined within a state machine, a version ARN, or an alias ARN.

The following are some examples of qualified and unqualified state machine ARNs:

  • The following qualified state machine ARN refers to a Distributed Map state with a label mapStateLabel in a state machine named myStateMachine.

    arn:partition:states:region:account-id:stateMachine:myStateMachine/mapStateLabel

    If you provide a qualified state machine ARN that refers to a Distributed Map state, the request fails with ValidationException.

  • The following qualified state machine ARN refers to an alias named PROD.

    arn:<partition>:states:<region>:<account-id>:stateMachine:<myStateMachine:PROD>

    If you provide a qualified state machine ARN that refers to a version ARN or an alias ARN, the request starts execution for that version or alias.

  • The following unqualified state machine ARN refers to a state machine named myStateMachine.

    arn:<partition>:states:<region>:<account-id>:stateMachine:<myStateMachine>

This API action returns the details for a state machine version if the stateMachineArn you specify is a state machine version ARN.

This operation is eventually consistent. The results are best effort and may not reflect very recent updates and changes.

post/#X-Amz-Target=AWSStepFunctions.DescribeStateMachine

Headers

X-Amz-Target'AWSStepFunctions.DescribeStateMachine' required

Request body

stateMachineArnstring required
<p>The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the state machine for which you want the information.</p> <p>If you specify a state machine version ARN, this API returns details about that version. The version ARN is a combination of state machine ARN and the version number separated by a colon (:). For example, <code>stateMachineARN:1</code>.</p>
includedData'ALL_DATA' | 'METADATA_ONLY'
<p>If your state machine definition is encrypted with a KMS key, callers must have <code>kms:Decrypt</code> permission to decrypt the definition. Alternatively, you can call the API with <code>includedData = METADATA_ONLY</code> to get a successful response without the encrypted definition.</p> <note> <p> When calling a labelled ARN for an encrypted state machine, the <code>includedData = METADATA_ONLY</code> parameter will not apply because Step Functions needs to decrypt the entire state machine definition to get the Distributed Map state’s definition. In this case, the API caller needs to have <code>kms:Decrypt</code> permission. </p> </note>

Response

Success

stateMachineArnstring required
<p>The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) that identifies the state machine.</p> <p>If you specified a state machine version ARN in your request, the API returns the version ARN. The version ARN is a combination of state machine ARN and the version number separated by a colon (:). For example, <code>stateMachineARN:1</code>.</p>
namestring required
<p>The name of the state machine.</p> <p>A name must <i>not</i> contain:</p> <ul> <li> <p>white space</p> </li> <li> <p>brackets <code>&lt; &gt; { } [ ]</code> </p> </li> <li> <p>wildcard characters <code>? *</code> </p> </li> <li> <p>special characters <code>" # % \ ^ | ~ ` $ &amp; , ; : /</code> </p> </li> <li> <p>control characters (<code>U+0000-001F</code>, <code>U+007F-009F</code>, <code>U+FFFE-FFFF</code>)</p> </li> <li> <p>surrogates (<code>U+D800-DFFF</code>)</p> </li> <li> <p>invalid characters (<code> U+10FFFF</code>)</p> </li> </ul> <p>To enable logging with CloudWatch Logs, the name should only contain 0-9, A-Z, a-z, - and _.</p>
status'ACTIVE' | 'DELETING'

The current status of the state machine.

definitionstring password required
<p>The Amazon States Language definition of the state machine. See <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/step-functions/latest/dg/concepts-amazon-states-language.html">Amazon States Language</a>.</p> <p>If called with <code>includedData = METADATA_ONLY</code>, the returned definition will be <code>{}</code>.</p>
roleArnstring required

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the IAM role used when creating this state machine. (The IAM role maintains security by granting Step Functions access to Amazon Web Services resources.)

type'STANDARD' | 'EXPRESS' required

The <code>type</code> of the state machine (<code>STANDARD</code> or <code>EXPRESS</code>).

creationDatestring date-time required
<p>The date the state machine is created.</p> <p>For a state machine version, <code>creationDate</code> is the date the version was created.</p>
labelstring

A user-defined or an auto-generated string that identifies a <code>Map</code> state. This parameter is present only if the <code>stateMachineArn</code> specified in input is a qualified state machine ARN.

revisionIdstring
<p>The revision identifier for the state machine.</p> <p>Use the <code>revisionId</code> parameter to compare between versions of a state machine configuration used for executions without performing a diff of the properties, such as <code>definition</code> and <code>roleArn</code>.</p>
descriptionstring password

The description of the state machine version.

variableReferencesobject

A map of <b>state name</b> to a list of variables referenced by that state. States that do not use variable references will not be shown in the response.