Describing ChangeSet with '--output text' flag returns invalid result

[kevingunn-wk]

Describe the bug

When trying to describe a change set to get a specific value, such as the ChangeSetId, if using the --output text flag, this results in an invalid response. It will include both the ARN for the changeset, but also add 'None' in a new line. It's as if it is pulling from a second field or trying to return two values.

Regression Issue

• Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

Expected Behavior

The output, in this case, should just return the ARN for the changeset as a single string:

$ aws cloudformation describe-change-set --stack-name my-cfn-stack --change-set-name 'change-set-1' --query 'ChangeSetId' --output text
arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:00000000000:changeSet/change-set-1/11111111111111111111111111

Current Behavior

Instead of just getting the field back in the --query (ChangeSetId in this case), we are getting two responses back when using --output text.

$ aws cloudformation describe-change-set --stack-name my-cfn-stack --change-set-name 'change-set-1' --query 'ChangeSetId'
"arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:00000000000:changeSet/change-set-1/11111111111111111111111111"

$ aws cloudformation describe-change-set --stack-name my-cfn-stack --change-set-name 'change-set-1' --query 'ChangeSetId' --output text
arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:00000000000:changeSet/change-set-1/11111111111111111111111111
None

Reproduction Steps

Create a Change Set
Use the CLI to describe changeset and query for a specific key
Repeat, but add --output text and observe 'None' is returned with the expected value.

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

I've tested this and observed the behavior on my machine (macOS) and we have observed the same behavior in GitHub actions (AmazonLinux 2023 private hosted runner).

Also happens in version:
aws-cli/2.32.30 Python/3.13.11 Darwin/25.2.0 source/x86_64

CLI version used

aws-cli/2.33.16 Python/3.13.12 Darwin/25.2.0 source/x86_64

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

MacOS 26.2

[kevingunn-wk]

Actually, looking at the docs, maybe this is a none issue, seems to be an issue with pagination. If I include --no-pagination in the command as well, it works fine.

From the docs:

describe-change-set is a paginated operation. Multiple API calls may be issued in order to retrieve the entire data set of results. You can disable pagination by providing the --no-paginate argument. When using --output text and the --query argument on a paginated response, the --query argument must extract data from the results of the following query expressions: Changes

With that in mind, this command seems to work properly:

aws cloudformation describe-change-set --stack-name my-cfn-stack --change-set-name 'change-set-1' --query 'ChangeSetId' --output text -no-paginate
arn:aws:cloudformation:us-east-1:00000000000:changeSet/change-set-1/11111111111111111111111111

[RyanFitzSimmonsAK]

Hi @kevingunn-wk, thanks for reaching out. I suspect that you're right that this has to do with the interaction between output and query. From https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-usage-output-format.html,

The output type you specify changes how the --query option operates:

If you specify --output text, the output is paginated before the --query filter is applied, and the AWS CLI runs the query once on each page of the output. Due to this, the query includes the first matching element on each page which can result in unexpected extra output. To additionally filter the output, you can use other command line tools such as head or tail.

If you specify --output json, the output is completely processed as a single, native structure before the --query filter is applied. The AWS CLI runs the query only once against the entire structure, producing a filtered result that is then output.

To confirm this is the root cause, could you provide debug logs of this behavior? You can get debug logs by adding --debug to your command, and redacting any sensitive output.