RDS Backup Retention Low

What this rule checks

Detects RDS instances with insufficient backup retention.

How to fix it

1. 1Set backup retention period to at least 7 days
2. 2Consider longer retention for compliance requirements
3. 3Enable cross-region backup replication

import { Stack, App } from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import { Construct } from 'constructs';
import * as rds from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-rds';

new rds.CfnDBInstance(this, 'Db', {
  engine: 'postgres',
  dbInstanceClass: 'db.t3.micro',
  allocatedStorage: '20',
  backupRetentionPeriod: 3,
});

import { Stack, App } from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import { Construct } from 'constructs';
import * as rds from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-rds';

new rds.CfnDBInstance(this, 'Db', {
  engine: 'postgres',
  dbInstanceClass: 'db.t3.micro',
  allocatedStorage: '20',
  backupRetentionPeriod: 7,
});

CDK Insights pinpoints the exact file and line in your CDK source for every finding, so you can jump straight to the fix.

Affected resource types

Intentional? Suppress this finding

Sometimes a flag is deliberate — a genuinely public endpoint, say. You can dismiss rds-backup-retention-low and the reason is kept in the report, not silently hidden.

In .cdk-insights.json:

{
  "ignoreRules": [
    { "id": "rds-backup-retention-low", "reason": "Why this is intentional" }
  ]
}

Or inline in your CDK code:

Validations.of(scope).acknowledge({
  id: 'cdk-insights::rds-backup-retention-low',
  reason: 'Why this is intentional',
});

Use the rule ID rds-backup-retention-low shown above — not the CDK-* ID from SARIF / GitHub code scanning. To dismiss every finding on one construct instead, use ignorePaths. Suppression docs →

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