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Hyperpod Cluster Debugger

AWS LabsOfficialPublished by AWS Labs

  • Skill
  • Review and audit
  • Cloud and DevOps
  • Apache-2.0
  • Low risk
  • Has scripts

From the author

Diagnose and remediate cluster-wide HyperPod (EKS or Slurm) problems — creation / deployment failures (CloudFormation, EFA health check, lifecycle scripts, capacity), EKS access, node replacement, CloudFormation nested-stack errors, post-maintenance rollback state, dangling nodes, autoscaler conflicts. Includes `--validate` pre-flight. Read-only.
— the description by AWS Labs

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

The HyperPod Cluster Debugger is a read-only diagnostic tool designed to identify and resolve common failures in HyperPod clusters, including deployment errors, EFA health checks, lifecycle script failures, and capacity issues. It provides a structured workflow to collect cluster state via AWS APIs and SSM, mapping findings to specific remediation runbooks. The tool emphasizes safe operations by providing suggested commands for users to execute manually, ensuring that IaC-managed environments are not inadvertently drifted.

What it does

  • Collects cluster state via AWS APIs and SSM for comprehensive diagnostic reporting.
  • Validates pre-flight requirements including SGs, subnets, IAM, and capacity.
  • Maps detected failures to specific remediation runbooks for EFA, EKS, SSM, and CloudFormation.
  • Provides actionable, read-only diagnostic commands to identify root causes.
  • Offers guidance on distinguishing between manual fixes and IaC-managed configurations.
  • Generates diagnostic bundles to streamline escalation to AWS Support.

When to use it

  • When a HyperPod cluster fails during creation or deployment.
  • When diagnosing EKS access, node replacement, or autoscaler conflicts.
  • When troubleshooting lifecycle script timeouts or failures.
  • When verifying capacity availability in specific AZs before cluster creation.
  • When investigating post-maintenance rollback states or dangling nodes.

Advantages

  • Reduces manual troubleshooting time by automating the collection of cluster state.
  • Provides clear, categorized remediation steps for complex HyperPod error signals.
  • Promotes safe practices by preventing unintended configuration drift in IaC environments.
  • Standardizes the diagnostic output for efficient escalation to AWS Support.
  • Includes pre-flight validation to catch configuration errors before cluster deployment.

Usage examples

“Diagnose my existing HyperPod cluster named my-cluster in us-west-2.”
The tool runs the diagnostic script, collects state, and outputs a list of [PASS], [FAIL], or [WARN] items with pointers to specific remediation documentation.
“Validate my network and IAM configuration before creating a new HyperPod cluster.”
The tool performs a pre-flight check using the provided SG IDs and subnet IDs, verifying capacity and permissions to ensure a successful cluster creation.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/awslabs/hyperpod-cluster-debugger/download
  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip hyperpod-cluster-debugger.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by AWS Labs

HyperPod Cluster Debugger

Operating policy. Run read-only diagnostics yourself. Never run a command that changes cluster, node, or workload state — present each one as a Suggested command (run this yourself) block and wait for the customer to run it. Destructive order: investigate → reboot → replace (replace destroys root + secondary volumes; not supported on Slurm controller nodes).

Before any state-changing CLI: ask if it's IaC-managed. HyperPod clusters, SGs, EKS access entries, and IAM are usually provisioned via CloudFormation / CDK / Terraform. If yes, the fix belongs in IaC — running the CLI will drift and the next deploy reverts it. Use the CLI only when IaC is unavailable (locked out, predates IaC, mid-review).

scripts/diagnose-cluster.sh is read-only: it collects state via AWS APIs (and SSM for Slurm controller health) and prints each issue as [FAIL] ... → references/<file>.md § <section>.

ReferenceOpen when
cluster-diagnostics-detail.mdPer-finding remediation runbook (§ A–L)
cluster-operations.mdOperational deep-dives (EFA SG, EKS access, SSM, Slurm, filesystem)
cloudformation-errors.md§ H needs the full per-resource CFN error catalog
capacity-planning.md§ B or --validate flags capacity / subnet sizing
lifecycle-scripts.md§ C points at a specific lifecycle failure
iam-permissions.mdFull IAM policy for the diagnostic

Workflow

  1. Collect HyperPod cluster name (not EKS name), region, exact error string.

  2. Run scripts/diagnose-cluster.sh (or --validate for pre-create).

  3. For every [FAIL] line, Read the referenced section.

  4. Present finding, root cause, and the Suggested-command block verbatim. Wait for customer approval.

  5. Re-run the diagnostic to confirm.


Step 1: Run diagnostics

# Diagnose an existing cluster:
bash scripts/diagnose-cluster.sh --cluster <CLUSTER_NAME_OR_ARN> --region <REGION>

# Pre-flight (no cluster needed) — validates SGs, subnets, IAM, VPC endpoints,
# optionally S3 lifecycle scripts and per-AZ capacity:
bash scripts/diagnose-cluster.sh --validate --region <REGION> \
  --sg-ids <sg-1,sg-2> --subnet-ids <sub-1,sub-2> [--iam-role <role-arn>] \
  [--s3-uri s3://<BUCKET>/path/] [--instance-type ml.p5.48xlarge]

Pass --instance-type when the target instance type is known — enables the per-AZ capacity check (warns if none of the provided subnets are in an AZ that offers that type, which causes insufficient-capacity failures at creation time).

Tags: [PASS] · [FAIL] (counted, has → references/... pointer) · [WARN] · [INFO]. Priorities: P0 blocks operation · P1 degraded · P2 informational.


Step 2: Match signal → section

Error messages / events:

SignalSection
"EFA health checks did not run successfully" (public-doc verbatim signal)A: EFA Health Checks
Insufficient-capacity or AZ-mismatch failure at creationB: Capacity & AZ
Lifecycle-script failure or timeout during provisioningC: Lifecycle Scripts
kubectl auth error (server asks for credentials / no API group list)D: EKS Access
InService but not all instances visibleE: Cluster Provisioning
"Target is not connected" / SSM errorsF: SSM Connectivity
Node replacement not happening / batch-replace not workingG: Node Replacement
"Embedded stack failed" / any CloudFormation errorH: CloudFormation Errors
UpdateClusterSoftware failed or cluster in post-maintenance rollback stateJ: AMI & Cluster Updates
Dangling / orphaned nodes in EKS vs list-cluster-nodesK: Dangling Nodes & Cleanup
Cluster Autoscaler breaks after HyperPod attachedL: Autoscaler Compatibility
Slow I/O, FSx throughput saturatedcluster-operations.md § 9
Slurm node name → instance ID lookupI: Utilities

A: EFA Health Checks

SG missing self-reference. Add inbound + outbound self-ref to every SG on the cluster, plus least-privilege egress for the AWS APIs the node needs (HTTPS 443 to S3 / ECR / SageMaker / SSM / STS / CloudWatch Logs — via VPC-endpoint prefix-lists when possible). Full procedure: cluster-diagnostics-detail.md § A.

B: Capacity & AZ

Instance type unavailable in the requested AZ. Verify with describe-instance-type-offerings, then change AZ, use Flexible Training Plans, or request ODCR. Full: § B · strategy: capacity-planning.md.

C: Lifecycle Scripts

Script failed or timed out during provisioning. Read CloudWatch under /aws/sagemaker/Clusters/<name>/<id> — common causes: missing S3 VPC endpoint, IAM gap, CRLF line endings, instance-group name mismatch. Full: § C · layout: lifecycle-scripts.md.

D: EKS Access / kubectl

IAM identity not in EKS access entries. Verify with sts get-caller-identity, create an access entry with admin policy, update kubeconfig. Full: § D.

E: Cluster Provisioning

InService without all instances is expected under Continuous Provisioning — failures surface as events, not cluster errors. For stuck Creating/Updating/Deleting: check CFN nested stacks (§ H), IAM, capacity, events; if stuck Deleting check VPC ENI dependencies. Full: § E.

F: SSM Connectivity

Target is not connected: use sagemaker-cluster:<CLUSTER_ID>_<GROUP>-<INSTANCE_ID> format (not raw EC2 ID), install session-manager-plugin, confirm node Running. Check IAM + VPC endpoints on timeouts. Full: § F.

G: Node Replacement

Auto-repair: confirm NodeRecovery=Automatic, check Health Monitoring Agent (HMA) logs + node labels / Slurm reason, confirm capacity. Manual: reboot first, replace only if reboot fails. Replace requires the cluster to have been patched via UpdateClusterSoftware at least once and cannot target a Slurm controller node. Full: § G.

H: CloudFormation Errors

Embedded stack failed hides the real error. Drill into nested stacks via Events tab (filter Failed) until you reach a non-stack resource. CLI: describe-stack-events --query 'StackEvents[?ResourceStatus==\CREATE_FAILED`]'`. Also covers SLR creation failures and permission-boundary denials. Full: § H · catalog: cloudformation-errors.md.

I: Utilities

Map Slurm node names (ip-10-x-y-z) to HyperPod instance IDs via list-cluster-nodes or on-node /opt/ml/config/resource_config.json. Full: § I.

J: AMI & Cluster Updates

UpdateClusterSoftware fails and rolls back, or the cluster stays in a post-maintenance rollback state. Common causes: lifecycle script incompatible with new AMI, HMA version too old, insufficient rolling-update capacity. If the cluster has active nodes, collect diagnostics and escalate rather than delete-and-recreate. Full: § J.

K: Dangling Nodes & Cleanup

Nodes in kubectl get nodes but not in list-cluster-nodes (ghost EKS nodes), or the inverse (HyperPod nodes that never registered kubelet). Script flags both. Full: § K.

L: Autoscaler Compatibility

Cluster Autoscaler errors on HyperPod provider IDs and breaks autoscaling for all node groups. No officially endorsed workaround — escalate to AWS Support. Karpenter does not conflict with HyperPod nodes by default. Full: § L.


Prerequisites

  • aws CLI v2.13+ authenticated to the cluster's account

  • jq, python3, bash 4.2+

  • kubectl authenticated to the EKS cluster (EKS checks skipped if absent)

  • session-manager-plugin (Slurm controller health checks only)

IAM policy: references/iam-permissions.md.

Defaults

  • Region — required: pass --region or set $AWS_DEFAULT_REGION.

  • Mode — --cluster <NAME> (diagnose) or --validate (pre-create).

  • Event window — up to 500 most recent events (5 × 100, paginated).

  • Colors — auto-disabled on non-TTY; --no-color to force off.

Error handling

FailureScriptTell the customer
aws sts get-caller-identity failsExit 1"Fix AWS credentials and rerun."
Cluster not foundExit 1 after listing region's clusters"Confirm HyperPod cluster name (not EKS) and region."
sagemaker:* / ec2:* / eks:* / logs:* deniedWarn, add Missing IAM permission for <API>, continue"Grant the listed IAM action and rerun."
kubectl absent or unauthenticatedSkip EKS checks (access entries, add-ons, aws-auth, nodes)"Install/authenticate kubectl."
session-manager-plugin absent (Slurm)Skip Slurm controller probe"Install session-manager-plugin."
SSM throttled / times out (180s)Retry with backoff; warn and continue if still failing"Rerun later — script is idempotent."
CloudWatch log group not foundSkip CloudWatch check"CloudWatch not configured on this cluster."

Exit codes: 0 no critical failures · 1 one or more critical failures (cluster not found, fatal prerequisite missing, or any [FAIL] in diagnose or --validate mode). [WARN] lines do not affect the exit code.

Skill delegation

NeedUse
Shell on nodeshyperpod-ssm
Version comparison across nodeshyperpod-version-checker

Escalate to AWS Support

Escalate when:

  1. EFA health checks fail despite correct SG rules.

  2. Capacity errors persist despite a valid Flexible Training Plan / ODCR.

  3. Node replacement fails repeatedly without clear events / log signal.

  4. Cluster stuck in a non-terminal state (Creating, Updating, or a post-maintenance rollback state) for an extended period.

  5. CloudFormation root-cause is an internal service error.

Before opening the case

Run these commands and attach the output. Goal: AWS Support has everything at case open.

# 1. Cluster identity + status (confirms region, ARN, orchestrator, instance groups)
aws sagemaker describe-cluster --cluster-name <CLUSTER> --region <REGION>

# 2. Full cluster-level diagnostic bundle
bash scripts/diagnose-cluster.sh --cluster <CLUSTER> --region <REGION> > diag.txt

# 3. Per-node log/config bundle to S3 (delegates to hyperpod-issue-report skill)
#    See skills/hyperpod-issue-report/SKILL.md for the exact invocation.
Include in the case
  • Cluster name + ARN (or ClusterId suffix) and AWS region

  • ClusterStatus + FailureMessage from describe-cluster

  • Timestamp window (UTC start / end) of the failure

  • Exact error strings observed (copy verbatim from events / logs / console)

  • Affected instance IDs / NodeLogicalIds / instance group names

  • diag.txt from step 2 above

  • S3 URI of the hyperpod-issue-report bundle from step 3

Files

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Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs a command-line tool, Needs Python, Needs Node.js

Security

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Attribution and licence

Published by
AWS Labs
Publisher
AWS Labs (Official)
Source
awslabs/agent-plugins · plugins/sagemaker-ai/skills/hyperpod-cluster-debugger · commit fbefb37
Licence
Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
  • NOTICE (added by AutoGineer from NOTICE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
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