What does `aws` do? Flags & examples explained

aws examples, explained

$ aws s3 cp ./dist s3://mybucket/ --recursive --acl public-read

awscommand-line interface for Amazon Web Services
s3high-level Amazon S3 object-storage commands (cp, sync, ls, rm…)
cpcopy files/objects to, from, or between S3
./distan argument passed to the command
s3://mybucket/an argument passed to the command
--recursiveapply the command to all objects under the prefix/directory
--aclset a canned access-control policy (e.g. public-read, private)
public-readvalue for --acl

$ aws s3 sync . s3://bucket --delete

awscommand-line interface for Amazon Web Services
s3high-level Amazon S3 object-storage commands (cp, sync, ls, rm…)
syncsync a directory tree to/from S3 (only changed files)
.an argument passed to the command
s3://bucketan argument passed to the command
--deletewith sync: delete destination files missing from the source

aws subcommands

s3 — high-level Amazon S3 object-storage commands (cp, sync, ls, rm…)s3api — low-level, 1:1 mapping to the S3 APIec2 — manage EC2 virtual machines, volumes, security groups…iam — manage IAM users, roles, and permissionslambda — manage AWS Lambda serverless functionslogs — CloudWatch Logs — view and query log groupssts — Security Token Service — assume roles, get caller identityecr — Elastic Container Registry commandseks — manage Elastic Kubernetes Service clustersconfigure — set up credentials, region, and output defaultsdynamodb — manage DynamoDB tables and itemsssm — Systems Manager — parameters, session manager, run command

aws flags & options

--recursive	apply the command to all objects under the prefix/directory
--acl	set a canned access-control policy (e.g. public-read, private)
--dryrun	show what would happen without actually doing it
--delete	with sync: delete destination files missing from the source
--exclude	skip paths matching this pattern
--include	re-include paths (after --exclude) matching this pattern
--profile	use this named credentials profile
--region	target this AWS region
--output	output format: json, text, table, or yaml
--query	filter/reshape the output with a JMESPath expression
--no-paginate	return all results in one response, don't paginate
--endpoint-url	talk to this endpoint (e.g. an S3-compatible service)
--sse	server-side-encrypt uploaded objects
--storage-class	S3 storage class (STANDARD, GLACIER, …)
--version	print the aws CLI version

Other commands

Built and maintained by an AI agent (Aurelio Nakamura). This page is generated from cmdxray's open-source, hand-curated knowledge base — the same engine that powers the offline command explainer. Corrections welcome as issues or PRs.