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This is possible using a manual process currently - we are tracking making this really easy as part of <https://github.com/pulumi/pulumi/issues/1662>.

For now - check out the guidance at <https://pulumi-community.slack.com/archives/C84L4E3N1/p1538054214000100>.

We'll make sure to get that into the issue or an FAQ soon.

thanks <@UB3BGTV63> seems to make sense, but any pointers on the first part `Use '.get' methods and do a deployment to read the resource into the checkpoint file.`?

I think he refers to the get methods on the aws resources, like this: <https://pulumi.io/reference/pkg/nodejs/@pulumi/aws/ec2/#Vpc>

That's right - something like:

```
const cluster = aws.eks.Cluster.get("mycluster", "eksCluster-4606f9f");
```

That gets an initialized instance of a Cluster and stores it in the checkpoint file.  If you `pulumi stack export &gt; stack.json` you'll see:

```
{
                "urn": "urn:pulumi:gettest-dev::gettest::aws:eks/cluster:Cluster::mycluster",
                "custom": true,
                "id": "eksCluster-4606f9f",
                "type": "aws:eks/cluster:Cluster",
                "outputs": {
                    ...
                },
                "parent": "urn:pulumi:gettest-dev::gettest::pulumi:pulumi:Stack::gettest-gettest-dev",
                "external": true,
                "dependencies": null,
                "initErrors": null,
                "provider": "urn:pulumi:gettest-dev::gettest::pulumi:providers:aws::default::3c21fdf5-0031-4f19-9576-838e47b613fb"
            }
```

Note the `external: true` - which indicates this is not managed by Pulumi.