AWS Shell in Windows Terminal

Recently I had a need to run some AWS commands to configure S3 buckets. Of course, I could have done that by simply installing AWS CLI in Windows and running it from PowerShell shell.

Of course, I wanted to make things bit more interesting so I decided to add AWS shell to Windows terminal as drop down option.

Install Python, aws-shell and AWS CLI

Step one is to install Python for Windows. Latest version as of writing this article is Python 3.9.0. Note where Python installs as you will need this info later. By default it will be in C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39>.

Nest step is to open command line, go to installation folder and run the following command to install aws-shell

pip install aws-shell

After approximately one minute you will have installed aws-shell.

Install AWS CLI for Windows by downloading installer from this link.

Add AWS shell to Windows terminal

Open Windows terminal and from dropdown select Settings.

In the profiles section add following lines:

{
"name": "AWS Shell",
"commandline": "C:\\Users\\YourUsername\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python39\\Scripts\\aws-shell.exe",
}

If you wish to beautify it a bit more, you can add icon to the drop down menu in Windows Terminal and maybe select different font.

{
"name": "AWS Shell",
"commandline": "C:\\Users\\YourUsername\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python39\\Scripts\\aws-shell.exe",
"icon" : "C:\\Program Files\\Amazon\\AWSCLIV2\\aws-logo.ico",
"acrylicOpacity" : 0.80,
"fontFace": "Lucida Sans Typewriter"
}

Final result should look similar to this

About the Author: Marin

Started as trainer and administrator in Algebra, 5 years later became head of operating systems department at Algebra private college. At that time, he became IT Pro group lead and 5-year Microsoft MVP. Joined Microsoft in 2014. and after covering roles of Infrastructure and Azure TSP for 4 years, moved to Span to take the role of Senior Solutions Architect for cloud solutions. Currently holds Microsoft Azure MVP award. Personal time is occupied by enjoying short trips with his family and close friends, tinkering with home automation and networking and spending money on too many gadgets.

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