Discovering public parameters in Parameter Store

You can search for public parameters using the Parameter Store console or the AWS Command Line Interface.

A public parameter name begins with aws/service/list. The next part of the name corresponds to the service that owns that parameter.

The following is a list of some services which provide public parameters:

Not all public parameters are published to every AWS Region.

Finding public parameters using the Parameter Store console

You must have at least one parameter in your AWS account and AWS Region before you can search for public parameters using the console.

Finding public parameters using the AWS CLI

Use describe-parameters for discovery of public parameters.

Use get-parameters-by-path to get the actual path for a service listed under /aws/service/list. To get the service's path, remove /list from the path. For example, /aws/service/list/ecs becomes /aws/service/ecs.

To retrieve a list of public parameters owned by different services in Parameter Store, run the following command.

aws ssm get-parameters-by-path --path /aws/service/list

The command returns information like the following. This example has been truncated for space.

{
    "Parameters": [
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/list/ami-al-latest",
            "Type": "String",
            "Value": "/aws/service/ami-al-latest/",
            "Version": 1,
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-29T10:25:10.902000-08:00",
            "ARN": "arn:aws:ssm:us-east-2::parameter/aws/service/list/ami-al-latest",
            "DataType": "text"
        },
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/list/ami-windows-latest",
            "Type": "String",
            "Value": "/aws/service/ami-windows-latest/",
            "Version": 1,
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-29T10:25:12.567000-08:00",
            "ARN": "arn:aws:ssm:us-east-2::parameter/aws/service/list/ami-windows-latest",
            "DataType": "text"
        },
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/list/aws-storage-gateway-latest",
            "Type": "String",
            "Value": "/aws/service/aws-storage-gateway-latest/",
            "Version": 1,
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-29T10:25:09.903000-08:00",
            "ARN": "arn:aws:ssm:us-east-2::parameter/aws/service/list/aws-storage-gateway-latest",
            "DataType": "text"
        },
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/list/global-infrastructure",
            "Type": "String",
            "Value": "/aws/service/global-infrastructure/",
            "Version": 1,
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-29T10:25:11.901000-08:00",
            "ARN": "arn:aws:ssm:us-east-2::parameter/aws/service/list/global-infrastructure",
            "DataType": "text"
        }
    ]
}

If you want to view parameters owned by a specific service, choose the service from the list that was produced after running the earlier command. Then, make a get-parameters-by-path call using the name of your desired service.

For example, /aws/service/global-infrastructure. The path might be one-level (only calls parameters that match the exact values given) or recursive (contains elements in the path beyond what you have given).

If no results are returned for the service you specify, add the --recursive flag and run the command again.

aws ssm get-parameters-by-path --path /aws/service/global-infrastructure

This returns all parameters owned by global-infrastructure. The following is an example.

{
    "Parameters": [
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/global-infrastructure/current-region",
            "Type": "String",
            "LastModifiedDate": "2019-06-21T05:15:34.252000-07:00",
            "Version": 1,
            "Tier": "Standard",
            "Policies": [],
            "DataType": "text"
        },
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/global-infrastructure/version",
            "Type": "String",
            "LastModifiedDate": "2019-02-04T06:59:32.875000-08:00",
            "Version": 1,
            "Tier": "Standard",
            "Policies": [],
            "DataType": "text"
        }
    ]
}

You can also view parameters owned by a specific service by using the Option:BeginsWith filter.

aws ssm describe-parameters --parameter-filters "Key=Name, Option=BeginsWith, Values=/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest"

The command returns information like the following. This example output has been truncated for space.

{
    "Parameters": [
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn-ami-hvm-x86_64-ebs",
            "Type": "String",
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-26T13:39:40.686000-08:00",
            "Version": 25,
            "Tier": "Standard",
            "Policies": [],
            "DataType": "text"
        },
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn-ami-hvm-x86_64-gp2",
            "Type": "String",
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-26T13:39:40.807000-08:00",
            "Version": 25,
            "Tier": "Standard",
            "Policies": [],
            "DataType": "text"
        },
        {
            "Name": "/aws/service/ami-amazon-linux-latest/amzn-ami-hvm-x86_64-s3",
            "Type": "String",
            "LastModifiedDate": "2021-01-26T13:39:40.920000-08:00",
            "Version": 25,
            "Tier": "Standard",
            "Policies": [],
            "DataType": "text"
        }
    ]
}