a9s

Documentation

Getting Started

1. Install a9s
2. Ensure you have AWS credentials configured
3. Run a9s (or a9s -p myprofile)

Key Bindings

Navigation

Key	Action
j / Down	Move down
k / Up	Move up
g	Go to top
G	Go to bottom
Enter	Open / select
Esc	Back / close
h / Left	Scroll left
l / Right	Scroll right
PgUp / Ctrl+U	Page up
PgDn / Ctrl+D	Page down

Actions

Key	Action
d	Detail view
y	YAML view
x	Reveal (expand)
c	Copy resource ID to clipboard
/	Filter
:	Command mode
?	Help
Ctrl+R	Refresh
r	Open Stack Resources (CFN Stacks)
w	Toggle line wrap (in YAML view)
Tab	Autocomplete (in command mode)

Sorting

Key	Action
N	Sort by name
I	Sort by ID
A	Sort by date

General

Key	Action
q	Quit
Ctrl+C	Force quit

Child Views (Drill-Downs)

Press Enter on a resource to explore its nested children. Press Esc to go back.

Parent	Child View	Key	Description
Lambda Functions	Invocations	Enter	Recent invocations with status, duration, memory, cold start
Lambda Invocations	Log Lines	Enter	Full log output for a specific invocation (START → app logs → END)
S3 Buckets	Objects	Enter	Browse bucket contents, drill into folders
Route 53 Zones	DNS Records	Enter	View A, CNAME, MX, and other record types
Log Groups	Log Streams	Enter	Streams sorted by most recent event
Log Streams	Log Events	Enter	Color-coded log lines (ERROR=red, WARN=yellow)
Target Groups	Target Health	Enter	Health status per target (healthy/unhealthy/draining)
ECS Services	Service Events	e	Event timeline (steady state, placement failures, deployments)
ECS Services	Tasks	Enter	Running and stopped tasks with status, health, stopped reason
ECS Services	Container Logs	L	Application logs from CloudWatch (resolved from task definition)
CFN Stacks	Stack Events	Enter	Event timeline showing stack operation progress and status
CFN Stacks	Stack Resources	r	Logical and physical resources in the stack with status
Auto Scaling Groups	Scaling Activities	Enter	Scaling activity history with status, description, cause
CloudWatch Alarms	Alarm History	Enter	State transitions, configuration updates, and action events
Load Balancers	Listeners	Enter	Port, protocol, action, target, SSL policy, certificate

Commands

Press : to enter command mode, then type a command:

Command	Action
:q / :quit	Exit a9s
:ctx / :profile	Switch AWS profile
:region	Switch AWS region
:help	Show help
:<resource>	Jump to resource type (e.g., :ec2, :s3, :lambda)

All resource short names work as commands.

Configuration

a9s stores view configuration in ~/.a9s/views.yaml (optional — sensible defaults are built-in). AWS profiles and regions are read from ~/.aws/config. a9s never reads ~/.aws/credentials — authentication is delegated to the AWS SDK credential chain.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
NO_COLOR	Set to any value (e.g., NO_COLOR=1) to disable all color output. Follows the no-color.org standard. Useful for accessibility, scripting, or piping output.
AWS_PROFILE	Override the active AWS profile (same as -p flag).
AWS_REGION	Override the active AWS region (same as -r flag).

AWS Permissions

a9s uses read-only AWS API calls exclusively. The following managed policies provide sufficient access:

• ReadOnlyAccess (broad read-only access to all services)
• Or individual service policies like AmazonEC2ReadOnlyAccess, AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess, etc.

a9s will gracefully handle permission errors – resources you don’t have access to will show an error message instead of crashing.