Ecspresso

ecspresso Skill for LLM Agents

Overview

ecspresso is a deployment tool for Amazon ECS. You can use it to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot ECS services through configuration files.

Learning about ecspresso

Use the docs subcommand to look up how ecspresso works. This command requires no AWS credentials or config file.

# Browse the table of contents to find relevant sections
ecspresso docs --index --json

# Search for a topic by keyword
ecspresso docs --search "fargate" --json

# Read the full documentation
ecspresso docs --json

Always use --json for structured output that is easier to parse.

Common workflows

Check current state before making changes

# Show service status (running tasks, deployments, events)
ecspresso status --config ecspresso.yml

# Show differences between local definitions and running service
ecspresso diff --config ecspresso.yml

# Verify that resources referenced in definitions exist and are valid
ecspresso verify --config ecspresso.yml

Deploy

# Preview what will change (dry-run)
ecspresso deploy --config ecspresso.yml --dry-run

# Deploy the service
ecspresso deploy --config ecspresso.yml

# Deploy and wait until stable
ecspresso deploy --config ecspresso.yml --wait-until stable

Rollback

# Rollback to the previous task definition
ecspresso rollback --config ecspresso.yml

# Rollback with dry-run
ecspresso rollback --config ecspresso.yml --dry-run

Scale

# Scale to a specific number of tasks
ecspresso scale --config ecspresso.yml --tasks 5

Run a one-off task

# Run a standalone task using the service's task definition
ecspresso run --config ecspresso.yml

# Run and watch logs
ecspresso run --config ecspresso.yml --watch-container app

Inspect tasks

# List running tasks as JSON
ecspresso tasks --config ecspresso.yml --output json

Render configuration for inspection

# Render resolved task definition (with template variables expanded)
ecspresso render --config ecspresso.yml taskdef

# Render resolved service definition
ecspresso render --config ecspresso.yml servicedef

Configuration structure

ecspresso uses a config file (default: ecspresso.yml) that references a task definition file and optionally a service definition file.

ecspresso.yml          # Main config: region, cluster, service, file paths
ecs-task-def.json      # ECS task definition (JSON, YAML, or Jsonnet)
ecs-service-def.json   # ECS service definition (JSON, YAML, or Jsonnet)

Definition files support template syntax: {{ env "VAR" "default" }}, {{ must_env "VAR" }}, and plugin functions like {{ tfstate "resource.attr" }}.

Jsonnet is recommended over JSON/YAML

When creating or modifying definition files, prefer the Jsonnet (.jsonnet) format over JSON or YAML. Jsonnet has several advantages:

• Comments: Jsonnet supports // and /* */ comments. JSON does not allow comments at all.
• Trailing commas: No need to worry about trailing comma errors.
• Variables and functions: You can define local variables, reuse values, and compute derived values with std.parseInt(), std.parseJson(), etc.
• No template syntax conflicts: In JSON/YAML, Go template syntax {{ }} can cause readability issues. In Jsonnet, use native functions like std.native('env')('VAR', 'default') instead, which are cleaner and can return non-string types.
• No separate install needed: ecspresso bundles the Jsonnet library.

Example Jsonnet config:

// ecspresso.jsonnet
{
  region: 'ap-northeast-1',
  cluster: 'default',
  service: 'myservice',
  service_definition: 'ecs-service-def.jsonnet',
  task_definition: 'ecs-task-def.jsonnet',
}

Example Jsonnet task definition:

// ecs-task-def.jsonnet
local env = std.native('env');
local must_env = std.native('must_env');
local tfstate = std.native('tfstate');
{
  family: 'myservice',
  cpu: '256',
  memory: '512',
  networkMode: 'awsvpc',
  requiresCompatibilities: ['FARGATE'],
  executionRoleArn: tfstate('aws_iam_role.ecs_execution.arn'),
  containerDefinitions: [
    {
      name: 'app',
      image: must_env('APP_IMAGE'),
      cpu: 0,
      portMappings: [{ containerPort: 8080 }],
      environment: [
        { name: 'ENV', value: env('ENV', 'production') },
      ],
      logConfiguration: {
        logDriver: 'awslogs',
        options: {
          'awslogs-group': '/ecs/myservice',
          'awslogs-region': 'ap-northeast-1',
          'awslogs-stream-prefix': 'app',
        },
      },
    },
  ],
}

Use ecspresso init --jsonnet to generate Jsonnet files from an existing service. For more details, run ecspresso docs --search "jsonnet" --json.

Tips

• Always run ecspresso diff before ecspresso deploy to understand what will change.
• Use --dry-run on destructive operations (deploy, rollback, delete, scale) to preview the action.
• The verify command checks IAM roles, container images, secrets, and log groups referenced in definitions.
• When you need to learn more about a specific feature, use ecspresso docs --search "<keyword>" --json to find the relevant documentation section.