Amber CLI

amber repository: https://github.com/amber-runtime/amber

Install amber-runtime to get the amber terminal command for deploying durable AI agents to your AWS.

Quickstart

Install the package, initialize a repo, review amber.yaml, configure AWS and secrets, then deploy.

pip install amber-runtime
amber init

# Review amber.yaml

amber auth setup
amber config set openai-api-key
amber deploy
amber admin create-user --email dev@example.com
amber status

After setup, amber deploy runs the full deploy pipeline for your app, worker, dashboard, database, and AWS infrastructure.

Create the first dashboard admin user after amber deploy; the command reads Terraform outputs from the deployed stack. Cognito sends the invite email with a temporary password for /admin/.

amber.yaml is the user-facing deployment config. End users should not edit Terraform variables directly for the normal product path. During deploy, the CLI copies the bundled Terraform template into .amber/terraform/ and generates .amber/terraform/terraform.tfvars from amber.yaml.

name: my-project

app: my_app.main:app
worker: my_app.main:agent_runtime
environment: dev

# Optional overrides:
# region: us-east-1
# profile: amber
# dashboard: true
# path_prefix: ""  # optional; server-rendered apps can serve / directly

environment: dev keeps disposable defaults for local demos and testing. environment: prod uses safer Terraform defaults for buckets, secrets, and RDS, but still uses local Terraform state in this path.

React frontend (optional)

By default your application container owns / and serves its own UI (e.g. a server-rendered Jinja app). If your product UI is a React single-page app instead, keep it in a subdirectory with a package.json that declares react:

my-project/
  my_app/        # FastAPI app + AgentRuntime
  frontend/      # React SPA (package.json, vite.config.ts, src/, ...)
  amber.yaml

amber init detects it and records a frontend: block:

frontend:
  type: react
  path: frontend       # frontend dir, relative to the repo root
  build: npm run build
  output: dist         # build output dir (vite -> dist, CRA -> build)
path_prefix: /api      # required for react: your API is served under /api

When frontend: is configured, amber deploy builds the React SPA in a temporary node:20 Docker container, so Docker is the only local build requirement. The built SPA is served from S3/CloudFront at /.

Amber routes traffic by path:

• / serves your application.
• /api/* reaches your FastAPI app. Amber strips the /api prefix, so app routes are still written as /runs, /health, and so on.
• /admin/* serves the Amber admin dashboard, which prompts admins to sign in with Cognito.
• /admin/api/* serves the Cognito-protected Amber dashboard API.

React clients should call the app API at /api/.... The frontend build sets VITE_BASE_PATH=/ and VITE_API_BASE_URL=/api.

Amber does not add dashboard Cognito auth to your application /api routes. If those routes expose private data or mutations, enforce auth in your app.

Local Dashboard

For local development, point Amber at your Postgres database and serve the packaged dashboard from the CLI:

amber dashboard dev

Open the local dashboard at:

http://localhost:8765/admin/

The local dashboard reads workflow data from DB_URL and does not use AWS, Cognito, or CloudFront. The deployed dashboard is still created by amber deploy, served at /admin/, and protected by Cognito.

Deploy Pipeline

amber deploy runs a preflight before mutating AWS. It validates amber.yaml, local tools, packaged assets, importability of the configured app/worker targets, AWS auth, and the OpenAI API key secret.

After preflight, amber deploy runs five steps:

1. ECR bootstrap - create the ECR repositories before image push
2. Docker - stage contexts, build images, and push to ECR
3. Terraform apply - deploy the full AWS stack with a fresh image tag so ECS rolls onto the current code
4. Frontend - sync bundled React dashboard assets to S3 and invalidate CloudFront
5. Summary - print dashboard and API URLs

Advanced deploy flags are available for development and troubleshooting, but the supported full deploy path is amber deploy.

amber deploy --no-infra
amber deploy --no-build
amber deploy --no-frontend
amber deploy --service customer-app

Commands

Command	Description
amber init	Create amber.yaml with app and worker entrypoints
amber auth setup	Configure AWS access for deploys
amber auth login	Refresh the saved AWS SSO session
amber auth check	Verify the configured AWS profile
amber admin create-user --email <email>	Create a Cognito dashboard admin user
amber admin login	Sign in for CLI workflow queries
amber admin logout	Clear the cached CLI dashboard session
amber deploy	Build and deploy to AWS
amber destroy	Tear down deployed AWS resources
amber config list	Show project info and secret status
amber config set <key>	Set a secret in AWS
amber status	Show ECS health and deployed URLs
amber workflows list	List deployed workflows for scripts and coding agents
amber workflows queued	List queued workflows for scripts and coding agents
amber workflows show <workflow_id>	Show workflow details for scripts and coding agents
amber dashboard dev	Run the local Amber dashboard for local environments

AWS Credentials

amber auth setup is the first-time AWS SSO / IAM Identity Center setup command. It runs the AWS CLI SSO wizard, signs in, verifies the selected identity, and writes the selected profile and region into amber.yaml.

amber auth setup

For returning SSO users whose session expired:

amber auth login

To check the currently configured profile:

amber auth check

amber auth setup writes the selected profile and region into amber.yaml. It never writes secrets into amber.yaml.

Workflow Visibility

After deployment and first admin creation, sign in once for terminal workflow queries:

amber admin login
amber workflows list
amber workflows queued
amber workflows show <workflow_id>

These commands read through the Cognito-protected dashboard API. Use --json with workflow commands when another script or coding agent should consume the raw response.

Coding agents can run the same read-only commands after amber admin login to inspect deployed workflow state without direct AWS or database access:

amber workflows list --json
amber workflows queued --json
amber workflows show <workflow_id> --json

Secrets

The CLI manages these secrets in AWS:

Key	Store	Description
openai-api-key	SSM	OpenAI API key for LLM calls
db	Secrets Manager	Database connection URL managed by Terraform

amber init
amber config set openai-api-key
amber deploy

After a deployment is already running, rotate or replace the key with:

amber config set openai-api-key
amber deploy --no-build
amber config list

Teardown

Destroy the AWS resources created by amber deploy:

amber destroy

Use amber destroy --yes for non-interactive cleanup. The command keeps local project config in amber.yaml; to fully reset local Amber config after destroying cloud resources, run rm amber.yaml && rm -rf .amber.

Destroying a prod stack requires an explicit confirmation flag:

amber destroy --allow-prod-data-loss

This prevents accidental prod teardown while still allowing deliberate cleanup of test prod stacks.

Terraform State

Amber stores Terraform state in .amber/terraform/terraform.tfstate for the current project. Keep .amber/ if you want this checkout to continue managing the same deployed AWS stack, including future deploys and destroys.

If you delete .amber/, Amber loses the local Terraform state for that stack. Use amber destroy before removing it when you want Amber to clean up the AWS resources it created. Remote state support will be added when shared/team deploys need it.