switch-profile

An interactive CLI tool for switching between AWS profiles directly from your terminal. No more manually editing ~/.aws/credentials or juggling environment variables.

npx switch-profile

Why?

AWS SSO credentials expire every hour. Without switch-profile, refreshing them means either:

1. Manual copy-paste - Browse to the SSO portal, log in, reveal credentials, paste them into your terminal or ~/.aws/credentials file. Repeat every hour.
2. Per-command --profile flag - Use aws sso login --profile <name>, but then every command (and every tool like Terraform) needs --profile. Not always possible or practical.

switch-profile makes setting any AWS profile as default trivial - one command, pick from a list, done. It handles SSO session refresh automatically, including opening the browser for re-authentication when sessions expire.

Prerequisites

• AWS CLI v2 - Version 2 or later is required.
• Node.js - Any recent version that supports npx.

Important: Remove these environment variables from your shell if they are set, as they override the default profile and will conflict with switch-profile:

• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
• AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
• AWS_SESSION_TOKEN

Installation

No installation needed. Run directly with npx:

npx switch-profile

Or install globally:

npm install -g switch-profile
switch-profile

Quick Start

Switch between existing profiles

npx switch-profile

This will:

1. Show your current default profile with its expiry status.
2. List all available profiles.
3. Let you pick one to set as the new default.
4. Display an export AWS_PROFILE=<name> command you can run to lock that profile to your current terminal session.

For SSO profiles, if the session has expired, it automatically opens your browser for re-authentication.

Create a new profile

npx switch-profile
# Select "More options" > "Create profile"

You can create:

• Standard profiles - Access key + secret key pair.
• SSO profiles - Launches the interactive aws configure sso flow.

Delete profiles

npx switch-profile
# Select "More options" > "Delete profiles"

Select one or more profiles to remove. The current default profile cannot be deleted (switch to another one first).

Refresh an expired profile

npx switch-profile
# Select "More options" > "Refresh default profile"

This option only appears when the current default profile has expired. It forces a new SSO login and refreshes the credentials.

How It Works

switch-profile manages two AWS configuration files:

File	Purpose
~/.aws/config	Stores profile settings (region, output format, SSO metadata)
~/.aws/credentials	Stores access keys, secret keys, and session tokens

When you select a profile, switch-profile:

1. Retrieves the credentials for that profile (from cache or via SSO login).
2. Writes them into the [default] section of both files.
3. Records the profile name and expiry date for status display.
4. Shows an export AWS_PROFILE=<name> command to optionally lock the profile to your terminal session.

Per-terminal profile isolation

By default, switching profiles updates the global [default] section, which affects all terminals. If you need different AWS profiles in different terminals simultaneously, copy and run the command shown after each switch (export AWS_PROFILE=<name> on Linux/macOS, or the PowerShell/CMD equivalent on Windows). This sets an environment variable scoped to that terminal only, so other terminals remain unaffected.

For SSO profiles specifically, it leverages two additional AWS CLI cache directories:

• ~/.aws/sso/cache/ - SSO session tokens (long-lived, ~24 hours)
• ~/.aws/cli/cache/ - Temporary AWS credentials (short-lived, ~1 hour)

Detailed Documentation

For deeper technical details, see the docs below:

Document	Description
Architecture	Project structure, source files, and how the components fit together
AWS Profile Management	How AWS profiles, SSO sessions, and credentials are managed internally
CLI Interface	Detailed walkthrough of every menu, prompt, and user flow
Configuration Files	Exact formats of all AWS and internal configuration files
Development Guide	How to set up, develop, test, lint, and release
Gotchas	Critical pitfalls — global profile switching, per-terminal isolation limits, and LLM agent constraints

Troubleshooting

invalid_grant: Invalid grant provided

This error occurs during SSO profile creation when the wrong SSO region is specified. AWS SSO is region-specific - you must use the region where your SSO instance is configured, not the region you want to deploy resources to.

Fix: Delete the profile and recreate it with the correct SSO region.

Error: Fail to get credentials for profile ... Error loading SSO Token...

This typically happens after the ~/.aws/sso/cache folder has been deleted or corrupted. This folder tracks SSO sessions and cannot be reconstructed automatically.

Fix: Delete the affected SSO profiles and recreate them:

1. Run npx switch-profile
2. Select More options > Delete profiles
3. Remove the broken SSO profiles
4. Recreate them via More options > Create profile

AWS CLI not found

switch-profile requires AWS CLI v2. Install it for your platform:

macOS:

brew install awscli
brew link --overwrite awscli

Linux:

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
unzip awscliv2.zip
sudo ./aws/install

Windows: Download and run the AWS CLI MSI installer.

License

BSD 3-Clause