# Install org-formation with Homebrew

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool for AWS Organizations. Version 1.0.17 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:org-formation
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install org-formation
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:org-formation
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 1.0.17
- **Source summary:** Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool for AWS Organizations
- **Homepage:** <https://github.com/org-formation/org-formation-cli>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- aws-organization-formation (alias)
- ofn (alias)
- org-formation (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 1.0.17
## Project history and usage

AWS Organization Formation, distributed as org-formation, is a TypeScript CLI for managing AWS Organizations as infrastructure as code. It models accounts, organizational units, service control policies, cross-account CloudFormation resources, and account-provisioning tasks in version-controlled templates.

### Project history

The org-formation-cli repository was created on 2019-08-22. The project emerged in the period when AWS Organizations and multi-account landing zones were becoming ordinary cloud architecture, but many account and policy changes were still performed through consoles or bespoke scripts.

Its README presents three central features: IaC for AWS Organizations resources, CloudFormation annotations for cross-account provisioning, and automation of account creation and resource provisioning. The docs describe organization.yml templates containing Accounts, OUs, SCPs, and root-account metadata.

### Adoption history

AWS's Open Source Blog published a 2020 series on managing AWS Organizations with org-formation, describing it as an open-source, community-supported tool for managing different aspects of AWS Organizations through IaC. That coverage helped place the package in the AWS multi-account governance ecosystem rather than only in its GitHub niche.

The GitHub repository shows meaningful operator adoption for a specialized cloud-governance CLI, with more than a thousand stars and topics covering AWS, Control Tower, landing zones, organizations, CloudFormation, and DevOps.

### How it is used

Typical use starts with org-formation init organization.yml, which creates a local organization-formation file and an S3-backed state file. Operators then run update or change-set commands to apply changes to accounts, OUs, service control policies, and related resources.

Teams use the tool in CI/CD to review and apply AWS Organizations changes from source control. The README also documents Docker usage that mounts local AWS credentials, reflecting a common operational pattern for high-privilege organization-management tooling.

### Why package nerds care

org-formation is significant because it packages AWS Organizations governance as a normal CLI with npm, Docker, and Homebrew entry points. It turns a high-privilege, account-wide administrative workflow into an installable developer tool with templates, task files, and repeatable command semantics.

For package metadata, it is a good example of an IaC package whose executable names differ across distributions: aws-organization-formation on npm, org-formation and ofn as CLIs, and org-formation as the Homebrew formula.

### Timeline

- 2019-08-22: org-formation/org-formation-cli repository created on GitHub.
- 2020-08: AWS Open Source Blog published its org-formation walkthrough series.
- 2024-02: GitHub release pages show v1.0.x maintenance releases in the stable line.

### Related projects

- Related AWS services include AWS Organizations, service control policies, CloudFormation, CodeCommit, CodePipeline, and Control Tower. The org-formation-reference repository provides a best-practices reference architecture for starting AWS Organizations with org-formation.

### Sources

- <https://api.github.com/repos/org-formation/org-formation-cli>
- <https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/managing-aws-organizations-using-the-open-source-org-formation-tool-part-1/>
- <https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/org-formation>
- <https://github.com/org-formation/org-formation-cli>
- <https://github.com/org-formation/org-formation-cli/blob/master/docs/articles/aws-organizations.md>
- <https://github.com/org-formation/org-formation-cli/blob/master/docs/cli-reference.md>
- <https://github.com/org-formation/org-formation-reference>


## Security Notes

infrastructure mutation or orchestration signal.

- **Geiger risk:** orange / medium
- infrastructure mutation or orchestration signal


## Configuration and credential file locations

These source-backed paths show where this package keeps local settings or durable credentials. Automic Vault can use them as review targets for secret scanning, migration, and command approval.


## Configuration files

- Unix: ./.org-formationrc, organization.yml

## Credential files

- Unix: ~/.aws/credentials, ~/.aws/config

## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/org-formation.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/org-formation.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated configuration and credential file locations
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph