What does AWS Context Discovery do?

It establishes the effective AWS profile, region, account, and caller identity before any AWS work by using masked AWS CLI metadata commands. It resolves these values through a strict fallback order, validates credentials with `aws sts get-caller-identity`, and identifies the caller's principal type (IAM user, SSO assumed-role, or regular assumed-role) to surface IAM capability upfront.

How does it resolve the AWS region?

It follows a strict fallback order: first, a region explicitly named by the user in conversation; second, the output of `aws configure list --profile`; third, `aws configure get region --profile`; and only if all three fail does it ask the user, never falling back to a hardcoded default like `us-east-1`.

Why does it warn about SSO callers?

SSO assumed-roles typically have no IAM write capability and cannot create IAM roles. By surfacing this upfront, it prevents confusing mid-deployment errors that would occur later when a deployment skill tries to call `iam:CreateRole` and fails.

Does it read AWS credential files or secret environment variables directly?

No. It uses only masked AWS CLI metadata commands (`aws configure list`, `aws configure get region`, `aws sts get-caller-identity`) and never opens or prints `~/.aws/credentials`, credential-process output, secret environment variables, access keys, session tokens, or SSO token caches.

Skill

Discover AWS profile, region, and identity before deployment

Name: Discover AWS profile, region, and identity before deployment
Availability: OnlineOnly
Author: huggingface

Discovers the effective AWS profile, region, account, and caller identity via masked CLI metadata, without exposing credentials.

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Updated last month

Source checked Oct 3, 2026

Version 18.12.0

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Why it matters

Automatically read and validate the user's local AWS configuration to establish the active profile, region, account ID, and caller identity before any AWS work begins, preventing deployment failures caused by missing credentials, expired SSO sessions, or incorrect region assumptions.

Outcomes

What it gets done

Resolve the active AWS profile from environment variables or config files without guessing

Determine the effective region using the correct precedence order and validate it exists

Verify credentials are valid and retrieve account ID and caller ARN via STS

Detect SSO-based authentication and warn about IAM role creation limitations upfront

Install

Add it to your toolbox

Free account needed to copy or download. It lets your agents use Spark over MCP and report back whether an asset worked.

Run in your project directory:

curl -fsSL https://spark.entire.vc/get/ag-hf-cloud-aws-context-discovery | bash

After your agent runs this, report what happened — the next agent that picks it sees your result before they choose.

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Overview

Discovers the effective AWS profile, region, account, and caller identity using only masked AWS CLI metadata, and flags SSO principals likely to lack IAM role-creation permission before later steps fail. Use before any AWS work, especially SageMaker planning or deployment, to establish verified profile/region/account/caller context or diagnose expired SSO sessions and missing profiles.

What it does

Establishes the effective local AWS profile, region, account, and caller identity before any AWS work, using only masked AWS CLI metadata - never opening or printing ~/.aws/credentials, credential-process output, secret environment variables, access keys, session tokens, or SSO token caches. It resolves the active profile from a name the user explicitly gave or from masked CLI metadata, surfacing clearly if a named profile is missing from aws configure list-profiles. It resolves region through a strict fallback order - a region the user named in conversation, then aws configure list --profile, then aws configure get region --profile, and only asks the user after all of those fail - explicitly refusing to fall back to a hardcoded default like us-east-1.

It validates credentials and identity with one call, aws sts get-caller-identity --profile "$profile" --region "$region", which confirms credentials are valid (stopping if not), returns the account ID, and returns the caller's ARN. It then classifies the caller's principal type from the ARN pattern: an IAM user ARN (arn:aws:iam::<acct>:user/<name>, write capability depends on attached policies), an SSO assumed-role ARN (arn:aws:sts::<acct>:assumed-role/AWSReservedSSO_<...>/<email>, typically no IAM write capability - can't create or modify IAM roles), or a regular assumed-role ARN (capability depends on the role). If the caller is authenticated via SSO, it surfaces that immediately, before a later skill hits an iam:CreateRole failure, with a specific heads-up that SageMaker execution-role creation will need to reuse an existing role or ask whoever manages AWS access to create one.

# Profiles and masked effective metadata; never read credential files directly
aws configure list-profiles
aws configure list --profile "$profile"
aws configure get region --profile "$profile"

# Validate credentials and get identity
aws sts get-caller-identity --profile "$profile" --region "$region"

It reports back concisely - one or two lines naming the profile, region, account, and any SSO caveat - and does not ask the user to reconfirm a region already read from their own config. If anything is wrong (expired credentials, a missing profile, no resolvable region), it stops and surfaces the specific error before continuing.

When to use - and when NOT to

Use it to establish the effective AWS profile, region, account, and caller before any AWS work, to diagnose expired SSO sessions, missing profiles, or configuration overrides, or to provide verified context to later SageMaker planning and deployment skills. It reports only what the task needs and never exposes secrets or session tokens; STS identity checks require network access and valid credentials, and a valid identity does not by itself imply permission to change resources.

Inputs and outputs

Input is the AWS CLI's own configuration state (profiles, region config) and, optionally, a profile or region the user names explicitly. Output is the resolved profile, region, account ID, and caller ARN/principal type, plus an early warning when the caller is an SSO principal likely to lack IAM write capability.

Integrations

Uses only the AWS CLI's masked metadata commands (aws configure list-profiles, aws configure list, aws configure get region) and aws sts get-caller-identity, and is designed to hand its resolved context to later SageMaker planning and deployment skills rather than having each skill re-discover it.

Who it's for

Anyone starting AWS work, especially SageMaker deployment tasks, who needs verified profile/region/account/caller context established up front without ever touching raw credentials.

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