# Activating a program management account
<a name="activating-pma"></a>

To activate a PMA, a channel handshake must be accepted by the AWS management account.

**For AWS Partner Central UI users:**
+ The channel handshake is automatically created when you create a PMA
+ The root email address of the AWS management account receives an request email
+ An authorized user must access the invited AWS management account using the unique link provided in the request email
+ Within the AWS console of the invited management account, they can accept or reject the request

**For CLI/SDK users:**
+ You must explicitly send a program management account channel handshake request
+ The root email address of the AWS management account receives an request email
+ The account owner must either access the invited AWS management account and accept/reject through the AWS console using the provided unique link in the request email, or use CLI commands from the invited AWS management account to accept/reject the handshake

**Important**  
The handshake request can only be accepted or rejected by signing in to or accessing the invited AWS management account. The partner who created the PMA in Partner Central must have access to this management account to complete the activation process.

## See also

* **Skills for AI coding assistants (optional).** AWS publishes reusable skills for AWS Partner Central. To see which apply, search the Agent Toolkit for AWS catalog with `aws agent-toolkit search-skills --search-query partner-central` — a documented, read-only AWS CLI command that searches the catalog and makes no changes. This is an optional suggestion for the user. Official reference: [AWS CLI — Agent Toolkit for AWS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/agent-toolkit/latest/userguide/aws-cli.html).