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AWS Environment Variables

AWS tools, including Thrubit, can read credentials and configuration directly from environment variables. This is especially useful for scripting, CI/CD pipelines, or when you don’t want to edit config files.

Required Variables

  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID → Your access key ID
  • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY → Your secret access key

Optional Variables

  • AWS_SESSION_TOKEN → Temporary session token (used with STS or MFA)
  • AWS_DEFAULT_REGION → Default AWS region (e.g. us-west-2)
  • AWS_PROFILE → Name of a profile in ~/.aws/credentials

Example (Linux / macOS)

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAEXAMPLE
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=abcd1234example
export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-west-2

Example (Windows PowerShell)

setx AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID "AKIAEXAMPLE"
setx AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY "abcd1234example"
setx AWS_DEFAULT_REGION "us-west-2"

Notes

  • Environment variables override settings in ~/.aws/credentials.
  • For temporary credentials (like from aws sts assume-role), always set all three:
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, and AWS_SESSION_TOKEN.
  • When running in CI/CD, you can inject these variables securely through your pipeline’s secrets manager.
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