AWS CloudFront "TooManyInvalidationsInProgress" in CI

By Kaveh Alemi·Latchkey

CloudFront capped concurrent invalidations: "TooManyInvalidationsInProgress" means the distribution already has the maximum in-progress invalidations (15) and refuses another until some complete.

What this error means

aws cloudfront create-invalidation fails with "An error occurred (TooManyInvalidationsInProgress) when calling the CreateInvalidation operation". It happens when many deploys or per-file invalidations run close together.

An error occurred (TooManyInvalidationsInProgress) when calling the CreateInvalidation
operation: Your request contains more invalidations in progress than are allowed per distribution.

Common causes

Per-file invalidations flood the queue

Invalidating each changed file as its own request quickly reaches the 15 in-progress limit on a busy deploy.

Overlapping deploys each invalidate

Concurrent pipelines or a rerun stack multiple invalidations on the same distribution at once.

How to fix it

Invalidate with a single wildcard path

1. Replace many per-file invalidations with one wildcard invalidation.
2. Use "/*" for a full purge or a prefix like "/assets/*" for a subtree.
3. Wait for it to complete before starting another.

aws cloudfront create-invalidation \
  --distribution-id "$DISTRIBUTION_ID" \
  --paths "/*"

Serialize deploys to one distribution

Use a concurrency gate so only one deploy invalidates the distribution at a time.

concurrency:
  group: deploy-${{ github.ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: false

How to prevent it

• Prefer one wildcard invalidation over many per-file calls.
• Gate deploys to a distribution with a concurrency group.
• Poll GetInvalidation so overlapping runs do not stack.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

References

• GitHub Actions documentation