use-specific-aws-profile-with-cli.md

Use Specific AWS Profile With CLI

I have multiple AWS profiles authenticated with the AWS CLI. For some projects I need to use the default one and for others I need to use the other.

First, I can list the available profiles like so:

$ aws configure list-profiles
default
dev-my-app

For one-off commands I can specify the profile for any AWS CLI command using the --profile flag.

$ aws ecs list-clusters --profile josh-visualmode

However, I don't want to have to specify that flag every time when I'm working on a specific project. Instead I can specify the profile with an environment variable. The direnv tool is a great way to do this on a per-project / per-directory basis.

I can create or update the .envrc file (assuming I have direnv installed) adding the following line (and re-allowing the changed file):

# .envrc
export AWS_PROFILE=dev-my-app

Now, any AWS command I issue from that directory or its subdirectories will use that profile by default.

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