Creating and using command aliases in chat channels

AWS Chatbot 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.

Note

When a channel member runs a command alias, the target is run with the configured member's permissions (channel role, user role) depending on the permissions schemas in place. For more information about permissions, see Understanding AWS Chatbot permissions.

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.

Creating a command alias

To create a command alias, run:

@aws alias create alias_name mapped_action.

Note

The command alias definition can contain additional parameters. Also note that alias_name has a 100 character limit and mapped_action has a 5,000 character limit.

For example, in this alias:

@aws 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:

@aws 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:

@aws run automation --name val1 --role-name val2.

Listing command aliases

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

@aws alias list.

Running command aliases

To run a command alias, use:

@aws run alias_name or @aws alias run alias_name.

Getting help

To get help with command aliases, run:

@aws help or @aws alias help.