Tired of AWS Console Tabs? Meet TAWS, Your Terminal AWS Companion
Let's be honest: managing AWS resources often means a constant dance between your terminal, a dozen browser tabs of the AWS Console, and the official CLI documentation. It's context-switching hell. What if you could streamline that? What if inspecting your EC2 instances, Lambda functions, or S3 buckets felt as natural as listing files in a directory?
That's the itch that TAWS (Terminal AWS) scratches. It's a terminal-based console that lets you navigate and manage your AWS resources through a familiar, interactive TUI (Text User Interface), right from where you're already working.
What It Does
TAWS is an open-source terminal application built with Go and the excellent Bubble Tea framework. It provides a navigable, hierarchical tree view of your AWS resources—like EC2, S3, IAM, Lambda, and CloudWatch—directly in your terminal. You can browse resources, view their details in a structured panel, and execute common actions without leaving your keyboard or spawning a browser.
Think of it as a tree command for your AWS account, but interactive and actionable.
Why It's Cool
The beauty of TAWS is in its simplicity and focus. It's not trying to replace the full power of the AWS CLI or the detailed visuals of the Console. Instead, it carves out a perfect middle ground for daily development and ops tasks.
- Zero-Context Browsing: Quickly answer questions like "What's running in my
us-east-1right now?" or "What's in that S3 bucket?" without breaking your terminal flow. The tree view makes exploring your account's structure intuitive. - It Leverages Your CLI: TAWS uses your existing AWS CLI configuration and credentials. There's no separate setup. If
aws s3 lsworks in your terminal, TAWS works. It respects your named profiles and regions. - Fast & Focused: For many common "read-only" or inspection tasks, navigating with
j/kkeys in TAWS can be significantly faster than loading the graphical console. It's all text, so it's light and immediate. - A Foundation to Build On: Being open-source and written in Go, it's a fantastic project to study if you're interested in building TUIs or working with the AWS SDK. The structure is clean, and the scope is well-defined.
How to Try It
Getting started is straightforward, assuming you have Go and the AWS CLI configured.
Install it: