# The AWS CLI — AWS Fundamentals: Core Services for Cloud Beginners

Source: https://www.skillbyai.com/en/aws/aws-cli

> Script and automate AWS from the terminal with the AWS CLI, named profiles and IAM user credentials.

## Why use the CLI

The **AWS CLI** lets you call any AWS API from your terminal or a script — useful for automation, CI/CD pipelines, and quick checks the console is slower for.

## A couple of commands

List a bucket's contents, and list running EC2 instances.

```bash
aws s3 ls s3://my-app-bucket
aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name=instance-state-name,Values=running"
```

Output:

```
Lists objects, then running instance details as JSON
```

## Configure credentials safely

Run `aws configure` to set an access key from an IAM user (not root), and prefer named **profiles** when working with multiple accounts.