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Creating and using command aliases in chat channels

Amazon Q Developer supports the creation of command aliases to make running commonly used CLI commands easier. A command alias is a custom shortcut or shorthand representation of a CLI command that you define. A command alias can be configured to include one or more custom parameters. Additional target actions can be included as part of the alias definition.

Command aliases are defined for a single channel. If a channel is configured to work with more than one AWS account, the aliases work across all AWS accounts. All channel members share the aliases defined in the channel.

We strongly recommend that you don't add any personally identifiable information (PII) or other confidential or sensitive information to your command aliases.

For more information about running CLI commands in Slack, see Running AWS CLI commands from chat channels using Amazon Q Developer.

Creating a command alias in Amazon Q Developer

You can create command aliases using the CreateCustomAction action and providing an AliasName, or by running:

@Amazon Q alias create alias_name mapped_action.

For example, in this alias:

@Amazon Q alias create automation ssm start-automation-execution --document-name $name --parameters { "AutomationAssumeRole": ["arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/$role-name"] }

The parameters $name and $role-name are input variables that are required to run the alias. When the alias is run, your supplied parameter values are used for the parameters.

So, if you run:

@Amazon Q run automation val1 val2.

$name is assigned the value val1 and $role-name the value of val2. These values are assigned by position.

Alternatively, you can explicitly name the alias parameters:

@Amazon Q run automation --name val1 --role-name val2.

Listing command aliases using Amazon Q Developer

To list all available command aliases in a channel, run:

@Amazon Q alias list.

Running command aliases using Amazon Q Developer

To run a command alias, use:

@Amazon Q run alias_name or @Amazon Q alias run alias_name.

Getting help using Amazon Q Developer

To get help with command aliases, run:

@Amazon Q help or @Amazon Q alias help.