Get started with the Amazon CLI

This chapter provides steps to get started with version 2 of the Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI) and provides links to the relevant instructions.

Complete all prerequisites - To access Amazon services with the Amazon CLI, you need at minimum an Amazon Web Services account and IAM credentials. To increase the security of your Amazon account, we recommend that you do not use your root account credentials. You should create a user with least privilege to provide access credentials to the tasks you'll be running in Amazon.
Install or gain access to the Amazon CLI using one of the following methods:
- (Recommended) Install or update to the latest version of the Amazon CLI.
- Install past releases of the Amazon CLI version 2. Installing a specific version is primarily used if your team aligns their tools to a specific version.
- Build and install the Amazon CLI from source. Building the Amazon CLI from GitHub source is a more in-depth method that is primarily used by customers who work on platforms that we do not directly support with our pre-built installers.
- Run the Amazon CLI from the official Amazon ECR Public or Docker images.
- Access the Amazon CLI version 2 in the Amazon console from your browser using Amazon CloudShell. For more information, see the Amazon CloudShell User Guide.
After you have access to the Amazon CLI, configure your Amazon CLI with your IAM credentials for first time use.

Troubleshooting installer or configure errors

If you have issues after installing, uninstalling, or configuring the Amazon CLI, see Troubleshoot Amazon CLI errors for troubleshooting steps.

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Additional documentation and resources

Prerequisites