Quickly switch between AWS profiles

I have to deal with multiple AWS accounts of multiple customers every day, so I created this simple alias snippet to make it easier to switch between accounts:

alias profile="export AWS_PROFILE=\$(aws configure list-profiles | fzf --prompt \"Choose active AWS profile:\")"

It pops up a small prompt where you can choose the right profile with the arrow keys or search by text. After you choose a profile it is exported to the environment, and you don’t have to use the –region flag every time you run a command.

NB! Needs fzf.

What profile is currently active?

Quick tip for zsh users: add the profile environment variable to RPROMPT (right side of your shell prompt) for a quick glance to your active profile: RPROMPT='${AWS_PROFILE}'

Change profiles automatically

Another great trick is to change the profile automatically based on what directory you have open in your shell. For that you can use direnv and add an .envrc file to every directory where you need the profile to be changed, like:

export AWS_PROFILE=someprofile

It works recursively: you only need to add the file to the root directory.