aws-cli

The AWS CLI is the official command-line tool for Amazon Web Services, the cloud platform that powers a huge chunk of the internet. Instead of clicking through the AWS web console to create servers, upload files, change settings, or read logs, you type commands in a terminal and AWS responds. Anything you can do in the console — and a lot you cannot — you can usually do here, in a form that is scriptable and easy to automate.

A command always follows the pattern aws, then the AWS service you want (s3, ec2, lambda, and so on), then a subcommand, then options. For example, aws s3 ls lists the files in your S3 buckets. Built-in help is available at every level by appending help to a command.

Before using it you have to give it credentials so AWS knows who you are. The quickest way is aws configure, which prompts for an access key, secret key, default region, and output format. You can also keep credentials in environment variables, a shared credentials file at ~/.aws/credentials, a config file at ~/.aws/config (both supporting multiple named profiles you switch between with --profile), or, when running on an EC2 server, an IAM Role that AWS attaches automatically.

The tool is written in Python and is installed with pip (python -m pip install awscli) or a bundled installer on Linux/macOS, or an MSI on Windows. This README is for version 1, which enters maintenance mode on July 15, 2026; the maintainers recommend migrating to AWS CLI v2 on a separate branch. Reach for the AWS CLI whenever you want to talk to AWS from a terminal or shell script: deploying infrastructure, syncing files to S3, managing IAM, running automation in CI pipelines, or poking around an account.