AWS CLI 2 Cheatsheet

Setup and credentials

• Check the CLI version — Print the installed AWS CLI version.
• Configure credentials — Set your access key, secret key, default region and output format interactively.
• Configure a named profile — Store a second set of settings under a profile name.
• Set up IAM Identity Center — Create a profile that signs in with single sign-on instead of long-lived keys.
• Sign in with SSO — Open the browser to refresh your SSO session.
• Check who you are — Show the account and identity the CLI is using. The first thing to check when something is denied.
• Use a profile for the session — Make every command in this shell use a profile.
• See where settings come from — Show the active settings and their sources.

S3

• List buckets or objects — List buckets, or add a bucket and prefix to list objects.
• Create a bucket — Create a bucket. Names are globally unique.
• Upload a file — Copy a local file to a bucket.
• Download a file — Copy an object to the current folder.
• Sync a folder to a bucket — Upload only new and changed files.
• Mirror a folder, deleting extras — Also delete objects in the bucket that are not in the folder.
• Delete everything under a prefix — Delete all objects under a prefix.
• Create a temporary download link — Make a signed URL that expires after an hour.

EC2, Lambda and logs

• List instances — Show instance IDs and states as a table.
• Start an instance — Start a stopped instance.
• Stop an instance — Stop a running EC2 instance.
• Invoke a Lambda function — Call a function and write the response to a file.
• List Lambda functions — Show the names of functions in the region.
• Follow CloudWatch logs — Stream a CloudWatch log group live.
• Deploy a CloudFormation stack — Create or update a stack from a template.

Containers and secrets

• Log Docker in to ECR — Authenticate Docker to a private registry. Use your own account ID and region.
• Connect kubectl to EKS — Add the cluster to your kubeconfig.
• Read a parameter — Read a Systems Manager parameter and decrypt it if it is a SecureString.
• Read a secret — Read a Secrets Manager secret value.

Output and queries

• Choose the output format — Print results as a table. Other formats are json, yaml and text.
• Filter results with JMESPath — Select only the fields you need.
• Limit the results — Return at most 20 items per call.
• Get help for any command — Show the documentation for a service or command without leaving the terminal.
• See the underlying API calls — Print a detailed log of requests, useful for permission errors.

Related cheatsheets

• Ansible 2 cheatsheet — Run ad-hoc commands and playbooks, manage inventories, roles, collections and secrets with Ansible.
• Argo CD 3 cheatsheet — Install Argo CD, define Applications declaratively, and manage sync, diffs, history and rollbacks with the argocd CLI.
• Azure CLI 2 cheatsheet — Sign in and manage resource groups, VMs, web apps, storage, Kubernetes, registries and secrets with the az command.
• Bash and Linux 5 cheatsheet — Everyday shell and Linux commands for files, searching text, permissions, processes and servers.
• Claude API cheatsheet — Call Claude from Python, TypeScript or curl: messages, streaming, thinking, tools, structured output, caching, batches and error handling.
• Claude Code cheatsheet — Run Claude Code in the terminal: starting sessions, slash commands, permissions, CLAUDE.md, hooks, MCP servers and headless use.

Browse all cheatsheets