For aws, I usually read the cloudformation/api/boto3 docs. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGui...

I don't know all the options, and I don't need to either. Can look at examples to get started and customise as I need. What changes?

Idk if other ways are better, just looking at large text config files for apache or other linux software boggles my mind just as much if not more. Once you have lots of options it's just going to be complex to understand.