AWS Pick

A simple CLI tool to easily switch between AWS profiles in your shell environment.

INFO: Found 8 AWS profiles
           AWS Profiles
┏━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ No. ┃ Profile         ┃ Group  ┃ Current ┃
┡━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━┩
│   1 │ acme-prod       │ prod   │         │
│   2 │ acme-prod-admin │ prod   │         │
├─────┼─────────────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│   3 │ acme-stg        │ stg    │         │
│   4 │ acme-stg-admin  │ stg    │         │
├─────┼─────────────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│   5 │ acme-dev        │ dev    │    *    │
│   6 │ acme-dev-admin  │ dev    │         │
├─────┼─────────────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│   7 │ default         │ others │         │
│   8 │ sandbox         │ others │         │
└─────┴─────────────────┴────────┴─────────┘
Enter profile number or name:

Overview

AWS Pick (awspick) is a command-line utility that helps you quickly switch between different AWS profiles defined in your ~/.aws/config file. It automatically updates your shell environment by modifying the AWS_PROFILE environment variable in your shell configuration file.

Features

• Automatically groups and color-codes profiles by environment (dev, stg, prod, preprod) with visual dividers between groups.
• Lists all available AWS profiles from your ~/.aws/config file with numbered options
• Allows selection by either number or profile name
• Validates input to ensure a valid profile is selected
• Highlights the current AWS_PROFILE in the table
• Supports multiple shells:
  • Bash (~/.bashrc)
  • Zsh (~/.zshrc)
  • Fish (~/.config/fish/config.fish)
• Updates your shell configuration file to set the selected profile as the default
• Writes the selected profile to a shared file for cross-shell sync
• Creates backup files before modifying your configuration (keeps the 2 most recent backups)
• Ensures idempotency (no duplicate modifications if selecting the same profile)
• Prints a shell command for immediate application
• Provides clear logging of operations
• Handles errors gracefully with informative messages
• Supports case-insensitive profile name matching
• Filtering and grouping via CLI flags or env vars

How It Works

• Read profiles: Parses ~/.aws/config and collects default and sections named profile <name>.
• Filter list: Applies include/exclude patterns from CLI flags or env vars. Patterns can be substrings or regular expressions (--regex), with optional case sensitivity (--case-sensitive).
• Group profiles: Groups names using ordered rules. Default order: prod, stg, dev, preprod. Unmatched profiles go to others (appended at end unless explicitly positioned). Supports others positional marker and * wildcard catch-all for custom ordering. Groups are separated by visual dividers.
• Display and select: Renders a numbered table via rich and highlights the current AWS_PROFILE in the "Current" column. Input accepts either the number (1-based, current display order) or the profile name (case-insensitive match supported).
• Apply to shell: Detects your shell (bash, zsh, fish) and writes or replaces a single AWS_PROFILE="<name>" line in the corresponding rc file. Creates a timestamped backup and avoids duplicate changes if the same profile is already set.
• Export command: Prints the exact shell command to stdout so you can run eval "$(awspick)" to apply immediately in the current session.
• Cross-shell sync: Writes the selected profile to ~/.config/awspick/profile so other shells can pick it up on the next prompt.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9 or higher
• uv (for development)

Install with uv tool (global CLI)

Use uv's tool installation when you want awspick available outside any virtual environment.

The distribution is aws-profile-pick and the command it installs is awspick. They differ because aws-pick on PyPI is an unrelated tool, and every separator variant of that name normalises onto the same taken one.

# PyPI
uv tool install aws-profile-pick

# Straight from the repository
uv tool install git+https://github.com/KKamJi98/aws-profile-pick

# Install from the current checkout as a global tool
uv tool install .

# Keep it editable if you want code changes to take effect immediately
uv tool install --editable .

# Upgrade an existing installation (reinstall with latest changes)
uv tool install --upgrade .

# Editable + upgrade: reinstall in editable mode so code changes apply immediately
uv tool install --editable --upgrade .

After installation, add the bin directory printed by uv to your PATH so you can run awspick from any shell.

From source

git clone https://github.com/KKamJi98/aws-profile-pick.git
cd aws-profile-pick
uv venv .venv
uv pip install -e .[dev]

Usage

Simply run the command:

awspick

Apply the selected profile immediately in the current shell:

• Installed via uv tool install: eval "$(awspick)"
• Running the script directly: eval "$(python3 /path/to/awspick.py)"

You can also invoke the launcher script directly:

python3 /path/to/awspick.py

All prompts and logs are printed to stderr, while the final export AWS_PROFILE="..." command is printed to stdout. This ensures the menu is visible when using command substitution.

Add a wrapper function to your shell to avoid typing eval each time. Use command awspick when installed as a uv tool to avoid recursion:

function awspick_apply() {
    eval "$(command awspick "$@")"
}

function awspick_local() {
    eval "$(python3 /your/path/to/awspick.py "$@")"
}

alias ap='awspick_apply'

Use these helper functions to select and apply a profile in one step, depending on how you installed the tool.

This will:

1. Display a list of available AWS profiles
2. Prompt you to select a profile by number or name
3. Update your shell configuration file to use the selected profile
4. Create a backup of your original configuration file

Example output:

Enter profile number or name: 5
Selected profile: acme-dev
Updated ~/.zshrc with AWS_PROFILE=acme-dev
Backup created at ~/.zshrc.bak-20250605060000
Configuration reloaded automatically.

Sync across tabs and shells (recommended)

By default, each shell session has its own environment. To keep multiple tabs or splits in sync, awspick writes the selected profile to ~/.config/awspick/profile. Add a small hook so each shell reads that file on every prompt. The change will apply on the next prompt.

Bash

# ~/.bashrc
awspick_sync() {
  local f="$HOME/.config/awspick/profile"
  if [ -f "$f" ]; then
    export AWS_PROFILE="$(cat "$f")"
  fi
}
PROMPT_COMMAND="awspick_sync${PROMPT_COMMAND:+; $PROMPT_COMMAND}"

Zsh

# ~/.zshrc
awspick_sync() {
  local f="$HOME/.config/awspick/profile"
  if [ -f "$f" ]; then
    export AWS_PROFILE="$(cat "$f")"
  fi
}
precmd_functions+=(awspick_sync)

Fish

# ~/.config/fish/config.fish
function awspick_sync --on-event fish_prompt
    set -l f ~/.config/awspick/profile
    if test -f $f
        set -gx AWS_PROFILE (cat $f)
    end
end

Filtering and Grouping

You can control which profiles are shown and how they are grouped.

• -f, --filter: Only show profiles matching any given substring.
• -x, --exclude: Exclude profiles matching any given substring.
• -g, --groups: Only display specific groups (e.g., prod,dev).
• --group-rules: Customize grouping rules. Order determines display order.
• --regex: Treat --filter/--exclude as regular expressions.
• --case-sensitive: Make matches case-sensitive.

Group rules syntax

Rules are semicolon-separated: name=keyword,keyword;name2=keyword. Keywords match on token boundaries (-, _) so prod won't match preprod.

Syntax	Meaning
tf=tf	Profiles containing token tf → group tf
prod=prod,production	Multiple keywords for one group
others	Positional marker - unmatched profiles appear here
main=*	Catch-all wildcard - same as others but with custom name

Display order follows the rule order. Unmatched profiles go to the catch-all group (others by default, appended at the end if not explicitly placed).

Matching priority: explicit keyword rules are always evaluated before */others, regardless of position. First matching explicit rule wins.

Groups are visually separated by a divider line when the group changes.

Examples

# Show only prod and dev groups
awspick --groups prod,dev

# Show profiles containing "tooling" but not "legacy"
awspick -f tooling -x legacy

# Regex example: include profiles ending with -admin, exclude sandbox
awspick --regex -f '.*-admin$' -x sandbox

# Custom grouping: order ensures first match wins
awspick --group-rules 'preprod=preprod;prod=prod,production;stg=stg;dev=dev'

# Place unmatched profiles on top, infra profiles below
awspick --group-rules 'others;infra=infra'

# Same but rename the catch-all group to "app"
awspick --group-rules 'app=*;infra=infra'

# Result of 'others;infra=infra' with profiles: api-dev, api-prod, infra-dev, infra-prod
┏━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ No. ┃ Profile    ┃ Group  ┃ Current ┃
┡━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━┩
│   1 │ api-dev    │ others │    *    │
│   2 │ api-prod   │ others │         │
├─────┼────────────┼────────┼─────────┤
│   3 │ infra-dev  │ infra  │         │
│   4 │ infra-prod │ infra  │         │
└─────┴────────────┴────────┴─────────┘

Environment variables

export AWSPICK_FILTER="tooling,admin"
export AWSPICK_EXCLUDE="legacy"
export AWSPICK_GROUPS_SHOW="prod,dev"
export AWSPICK_GROUP_RULES='others;infra=infra'
export AWSPICK_REGEX=0             # 1/true to enable regex
export AWSPICK_CASE_SENSITIVE=0    # 1/true for case-sensitive

Development

This project uses uv for dependency management.

Setup development environment

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/KKamJi98/aws-profile-pick.git
cd aws-profile-pick

# Install dependencies
uv venv .venv
uv pip install -e .[dev]

# Setup direnv (optional)
direnv allow

Running tests

pytest

Code formatting

black .
isort .

CI

• Single workflow: .github/workflows/ci.yml
• Triggers:
  • pull_request and all branch push
• Behavior:
  • Runs tests and lint on every PR/push
  • Uses STAGE=prod on main, otherwise STAGE=preprod
  • Runs googleapis/release-please-action@v4 only on main

Project Structure

aws-profile-pick/
├── awspick.py       # Single-file launcher script
├── awspick/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── cli.py          # Command-line interface
│   ├── config.py       # AWS config file parsing
│   └── shell.py        # Shell profile modification
├── pyproject.toml      # Project metadata and dependencies
├── README.md
└── LICENSE

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes following the commit convention
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Commit Convention

This project follows the Conventional Commits specification:

• feat: A new feature
• fix: A bug fix
• docs: Documentation only changes
• style: Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code
• refactor: A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
• test: Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests
• chore: Changes to the build process or auxiliary tools

Example: feat(cli): implement number and name selection logic