Use UpdateRoleDescription with an AWS SDK or CLI

To change an IAM role's description

The following update-role command changes the description of the IAM role production-role to Main production role.

aws iam update-role-description \
    --role-name production-role \
    --description 'Main production role'

Output:

{
    "Role": {
        "Path": "/",
        "RoleName": "production-role",
        "RoleId": "AROA1234567890EXAMPLE",
        "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/production-role",
        "CreateDate": "2017-12-06T17:16:37+00:00",
        "AssumeRolePolicyDocument": {
            "Version": "2012-10-17",
            "Statement": [
                {
                    "Effect": "Allow",
                    "Principal": {
                        "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root"
                    },
                    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole",
                    "Condition": {}
                }
            ]
        },
        "Description": "Main production role"
    }
}

For more information, see Modifying a role in the AWS IAM User Guide.

Example 1: This example updates the description of an IAM role in your account.

Update-IAMRoleDescription -RoleName MyRoleName -Description "My testing role"