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Improper aws config file causes friction when starting with the AWS shell plugin #480

@AndyTitu

Description

@AndyTitu

Platform or tool

AWS

Acceptance Criteria

  • The user can quickly start using the AWS shell plugin in less than 5 seconds.
  • The user doesn't need to spend more than 5 seconds figuring out how to set up an aws config file if they don't have it already.
  • No secrets should be stored on disk.

Problem

If users are just starting out with the AWS shell plugin and they don't have a config file set up, or if their aws config file doesn't contain a [default] profile when they don't specify any profile using the --profile flag or the env var, the shell plugin will error out.

It's important to note that a default profile must be present even when working with the aws cli tool without the shell plugin, as aws configure will always create a config file containing the default profile. So requiring the default profile in our workflow is not an inconsistency but rather something that we can improve to smooth out the onboarding process.

Solution

The first step we can do is document how users can properly set up their AWS config file by proper use of aws configure. This command also asks the user for their credentials and attempt to write these to disk which is something we don't want to encourage people to do so we must be careful about the instructions we give.

Alternatively, we can implement on the rule that if a user hasn't specified any profile, and if they don't have a default profile set up either then we can assume that the user has a blank default profile, and we can start from there.

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