# AWS: Retrieve Capacity, Health, and Instance of ASG

Returns desired capacity, minimum and maximum size, and per-instance health and lifecycle state for one or more Auto Scaling Groups.


> **Availability:** See the [Incident Workflow Actions Overview table](/workflow-actions) for the plans this workflow is available on.

## Description

**Premium.** This action is a Premium Workflow Action, billed separately from your PagerDuty plan. In the workflow action picker, this action appears as **Auto Scaling: Describe Auto Scaling Groups**.

Retrieve capacity, health, and instance membership for one or more Auto Scaling Groups (ASGs). The action returns desired capacity, min and max size, and a list of instances in each group with their lifecycle state, health status, and protection settings. This action is useful for:

- Checking current ASG capacity before scaling up or adjusting max size during instance rotation
- Building conditional logic (e.g., only bump max size when desired equals max) in multi-step runbooks
- Gathering diagnostic information about which instances are in service, in standby, or unhealthy
- Chaining with Update Auto Scaling Group or other Auto Scaling actions in a single workflow

## Instructions

1. If you have not done so, follow the instructions to [Create an Incident Workflow](/ai-automation/automation/incident-workflows#create-an-incident-workflow).
2. When the instructions prompt you to [add actions](/ai-automation/automation/incident-workflows#add-actions), select **this action**.
3. Enter the following **Inputs** and click **Save**.
4. Continue following instructions to **Publish** the Workflow.
5. When the action runs, you will see the **Outputs** listed below.

## Inputs

> **Field References:** Fields with the **\{+\}** icon accept [Field References](/ai-automation/automation/incident-workflows#field-references), which can be useful for referencing incident data or outputs created in prior workflow steps. To add Field References, click **\{+\}**, or enter `{{`, and select relevant fields. Refer to the [Field References](/ai-automation/automation/incident-workflows#field-references) article for more information.

| Name                     | Description                                                                                                                                                        |
| :----------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Integration              | Select a [Workflow Integration](/ai-automation/automation/incident-workflows/workflow-integrations) or click **New AWS Connection** to establish a new one.             |
| Auto Scaling Group Names | One or more Auto Scaling Group names to describe (comma-separated). You can reference the ASG name from a prior step (e.g., from Describe Auto Scaling Instances). |
| AWS Region               | The AWS region where the Auto Scaling Groups are located. If left blank, the action uses `us-east-1` as the default.                                               |

## Outputs

| Name           | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| :------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Groups         | JSON array of ASG details. Each group includes: **asgName**, **desiredCapacity**, **minSize**, **maxSize**, **instances** (array with instanceId, lifecycleState, healthStatus, protectedFromScaleIn, availabilityZone, launchTemplate, launchConfigurationName), **targetGroupARNs**, **loadBalancerNames**, **terminationPolicies**. |
| Result         | Whether the action succeeded: **Success** or **Failed**.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| Result Summary | Brief description of what the action did or if it failed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| Error          | Error message, if the action failed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |

> **Tips:** - **Chaining Actions**: Use the output from **Auto Scaling: Describe Auto Scaling Instances** (e.g., `instances[0].asgName`) as the **Auto Scaling Group Names** input when building a rotate-or-scale workflow.
> - **Conditional Logic**: Reference **Groups** in a subsequent Logic step (e.g., `groups[0].desiredCapacity`, `groups[0].maxSize`) to implement conditional logic such as bumping max size only when at capacity.