AWS CLI

AWS CLI

Official CLI for Amazon Web Services. Manage all AWS services from the terminal.

• Official repo: https://github.com/aws/aws-cli
• Docs: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/

Authentication

aws configure                        # Set up credentials interactively
aws configure --profile staging      # Configure named profile
aws sts get-caller-identity          # Verify current identity
aws sso login --profile my-sso       # SSO-based login

Environment variables: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, AWS_DEFAULT_REGION

Common Commands

S3

aws s3 ls                                    # List buckets
aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket/                    # List objects
aws s3 cp file.txt s3://my-bucket/           # Upload file
aws s3 cp s3://my-bucket/file.txt ./         # Download file
aws s3 sync ./dist s3://my-bucket/ --delete  # Sync directory
aws s3 rm s3://my-bucket/file.txt            # Delete object
aws s3 mb s3://new-bucket                    # Create bucket

Lambda

aws lambda list-functions --query 'Functions[].FunctionName'
aws lambda invoke --function-name my-func --payload '{}' output.json
aws lambda update-function-code --function-name my-func --zip-file fileb://deploy.zip
aws lambda get-function --function-name my-func
aws logs tail /aws/lambda/my-func --follow   # Tail CloudWatch logs

EC2

aws ec2 describe-instances --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].[InstanceId,State.Name,PublicIpAddress]' --output table
aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-xxx
aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-xxx

IAM

aws iam list-users
aws iam list-roles --query 'Roles[].RoleName'
aws iam get-role --role-name my-role

DynamoDB

aws dynamodb list-tables
aws dynamodb scan --table-name my-table --max-items 10
aws dynamodb put-item --table-name my-table --item '{"id":{"S":"123"}}'
aws dynamodb query --table-name my-table --key-condition-expression "id = :v" --expression-attribute-values '{":v":{"S":"123"}}'

CloudFormation

aws cloudformation list-stacks --stack-status-filter CREATE_COMPLETE
aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name my-stack

Agent Best Practices

• Always use --output json with --query (JMESPath) for structured output
• Use --dry-run flag where available before destructive operations
• Use --profile to target specific accounts
• Use aws sts get-caller-identity to confirm which account you're operating on
• Prefer aws s3 (high-level) over aws s3api (low-level) for common operations
• Use --no-paginate or --max-items to control output size

Example Workflows

Deploy static site to S3

aws s3 sync ./build s3://my-site-bucket/ --delete
aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id E1234 --paths "/*"

Check Lambda function status

aws lambda get-function --function-name my-func --query 'Configuration.{State:State,Runtime:Runtime,Memory:MemorySize}' --output table