aws-platform-engineer

Creates and automates custom image builds with EC2 Image Builder - Linux, Windows, and macOS AMIs, and container images to ECR. Covers the build IAM role, Amazon-managed and custom components, image recipes, infrastructure and distribution configuration (launch templates, SSM parameters, other Regions), one-off builds, recurring scheduled pipelines for golden AMI automation and OS patching, custom image workflows, and diagnosing failed builds. Applies when creating, automating, or scheduling AMI or container image builds with Image Builder, or when debugging a failed build. Not for launching instances from existing AMIs, AMI lifecycle/retirement, or general EC2 fleet management.

Provisions, scales, and operates Amazon EC2 virtual-machine workloads: instance-type selection (Graviton/Arm64, burstable T credits, GPU, instance store vs EBS), launch templates, Auto Scaling groups (scaling policies, instance refresh, mixed instances, Spot, warm pools, lifecycle hooks), IMDSv2, placement groups, Elastic IPs, AMI lifecycle, and Systems Manager fleet operations (Session Manager, Run Command, Patch Manager). Applies to EC2 instance and fleet questions, InsufficientInstanceCapacity, CPU-credit/surplus charges, IMDSv2 401s, instances stuck in Pending:Wait, ASG not replacing unhealthy instances, status-check failures, SSH refused/timed out, or instances missing as SSM managed nodes. For a single secure instance launch, the launching-ec2-instance-with-best-practices skill is more appropriate; for instance profiles, see setting-up-ec2-instance-profiles; for Image Builder, see amazon-ec2-image-builder. Does NOT cover Lambda, ECS/Fargate, EKS, VPC/ALB/NLB design, or IAM policy authoring.

Builds and deploys containerized workloads on Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Elastic Container Service (ECS), Fargate, and ECR (Elastic Container Registry). Covers general EKS knowledge, Karpenter, AWS Load Balancer Controller and leveraging various open source Kubernetes projects with EKS. Covers general ECS knowledge, task definitions, Fargate services, ECS Exec, ECS Express Mode and ECS Managed Instances. Covers general Elastic Beanstalk knowledge, Elastic Beanstalk configuration and platforms supported by Elastic Beanstalk. Covers general ECR knowledge, ECR repository setup and lifecycle policies. Includes recommending, enabling, and reading Amazon ECS Action Logs to troubleshoot control-plane failures (deployment rollback/circuit-breaker, task placement, scaling, task replacement). Applies when deploying, debugging, or optimizing containers on AWS. Should be used instead of relying on internal knowledge for these services.

Guides general use of AWS messaging and streaming services. Covers Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, Amazon EventBridge, Amazon MQ, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, Amazon Data Firehose, Amazon Managed Service for Apache Flink, and Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK). Use when reasoning about messaging and streaming patterns. Also identifies which AWS service owns each customer communication channel: email (Amazon SES), and WhatsApp, SMS, MMS, RCS, voice and mobile push (the AWS End User Messaging family of services). Routes the request to the specialized skill for that channel. Defers to the channel's specialized skill when the user already named a specific channel. In general, use specific skills or documentation searches for detailed service-specific questions. Do NOT use for MSK or Managed Service for Apache Flink questions, prefer specific skills. Does not configure customer communication channels; defers to specific skills.

Installs, configures, and troubleshoots Network Flow Monitor agents on EC2 instances to monitor network path health. Covers agent installation, IAM permissions, monitoring network paths, and troubleshooting agents reporting no metrics, HTTP 403 errors, or connectivity failures.

Routes AWS networking requests to the correct service skill for implementation. Covers Route 53 (DNS, health checks, routing policies, Resolver, DNS Firewall), CloudFront (caching, edge, OAC, mTLS, signed URLs), Transit Gateway (multi-VPC hub, segmentation, centralized egress), Direct Connect (hybrid link, DX Gateway, MACsec), Site-to-Site VPN (IPsec tunnels, static or BGP), WAF (web ACLs, AWS Managed Rules, rate-based rules, Bot and Fraud Control), and Shield Advanced (L3/L4 DDoS). Applicable when creating, configuring, troubleshooting, or designing across these services, choosing between them, or diagnosing connectivity or traffic-filtering issues. Not for VPC subnets and route tables, load balancers, VPC endpoints, PrivateLink, API Gateway, IAM policy logic, container or serverless networking, or IaC authoring.

Builds, deploys, manages, debugs, configures, and optimizes serverless applications on AWS using Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, EventBridge, and SAM/CDK. Covers cold starts, CORS debugging, event source mappings, troubleshooting, concurrency, SnapStart, Powertools, function URLs, EventBridge Scheduler, Lambda layers, and production readiness. Triggers on mentions of Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, SAM templates, CDK serverless stacks, DynamoDB stream triggers, SQS event sources, cold starts, timeouts, 502/504 errors, throttling, concurrency, CORS, Powertools, or any event-driven architecture on AWS, even without the word "serverless." Does not apply to EC2, ECS/Fargate containers, or Amplify hosting.

Selects, investigates, and compares AWS object, file, and block storage services, and answers cost, performance, configuration, security, and troubleshooting questions about storage services. Applies when a user asks where to store or archive data based on their usage patterns; which storage service to choose or how two compare; how to migrate data from on-premises or between AWS services; how to protect, replicate, or recover data; how to optimize storage costs; where to deploy shared NFS, SMB, or POSIX file systems; where to store vector embeddings or tabular data; what storage backs enterprise file shares, self-managed databases on EC2, VMware, or stateful containers; or asks what an AWS storage service can do or how it works. Relevant for storage needs for workloads such as AI/ML, analytics, EDA, HPC, media, genomics, or financial trading. Not applicable for SQL query engines (Athena, Spark, Redshift, EMR), ETL (Glue), streaming (Kafka, MSK, Kinesis), or managed database services (RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB).

Configures Amazon CloudFront content delivery across six workflows: when to use CloudFront and how it fits with AWS WAF, Shield, CloudFront Functions, Lambda@Edge, Route 53, and origins (creating a distribution, caching, and Flat Rate Pricing (FRP) versus pay-as-you-go pricing); managing custom-domain TLS certificates (ACM in us-east-1); configuring multi-tenant distributions; protecting origins with origin access control (OAC), VPC origins, and origin mutual TLS (mTLS); securing content with signed URLs and cookies, geographic restrictions, viewer mutual TLS, and edge token validation; and observing traffic with standard and real-time logs. Applicable when the customer wants to put CloudFront in front of content, choose pricing, lock an origin, restrict who can view content, or analyze logs. Not applicable for the Route 53 DNS side of a CloudFront custom domain or failover between distributions (see the route53-cloudfront skill), or for pure-Route 53 DNS work (see the route53 skill).

Configures VPC endpoints (interface and gateway) for private AWS service access using AWS PrivateLink. Use when setting up secure private connectivity to S3, DynamoDB, and other AWS services without internet gateway, NAT device, or public IP addresses. Covers endpoint creation, security groups, route tables, and DNS configuration.

Establishes VPC peering connections between two VPCs for direct private network connectivity. Always use this skill when creating or managing VPC peering — it validates CIDR overlap, updates all route tables in both VPCs, configures DNS resolution, and provides security group guidance that are critical for correct connectivity.

Creates a production-ready VPC with public and private subnets across multiple Availability Zones, including internet gateway, NAT gateways, route tables, and security groups following AWS Well-Architected principles. Use when deploying multi-AZ VPC infrastructure with automatic CIDR planning and DNS resolution.

Configures AWS Direct Connect: choosing a connection model (dedicated, hosted, or a link aggregation group) and completing the cross connect; creating private, public, and transit virtual interfaces and bringing up BGP; reaching many VPCs through a Direct Connect gateway including cross-account transit gateway associations; encrypting traffic with MACsec or a private IP Site-to-Site VPN; making the connection resilient and tuning failover; managing link aggregation groups; SiteLink; and migrating from a virtual private gateway to a transit gateway. Use when the user wants a private, consistent network link between a data center and AWS, or operates an existing Direct Connect setup and needs to extend, encrypt, or harden it. Routes to the right per-task procedure in references. Do NOT use for transit gateway route tables and attachments (transitgateway skill), Site-to-Site VPN without Direct Connect (sitetositevpn skill), or Route 53 DNS routing (route53 skill).

Enables internet access for AWS Lambda functions deployed in VPC subnets by creating NAT Gateway infrastructure, configuring public/private subnet routing, and updating security groups. Use when a VPC-attached Lambda function cannot reach the internet.

Launches an EC2 instance with secure, cost-efficient defaults including AMI selection, burstable instance sizing, least-privilege IAM roles, hardened security groups, encrypted EBS volumes, and comprehensive tagging. Use when deploying new EC2 instances following AWS best practices for security and cost optimization.

Configures Amazon Route 53 DNS: public and private records, traffic-steering routing policies, health checks, DNS Firewall, Route 53 Profiles, VPC Resolver (also known as Route 53 Resolver) for hybrid and Outposts networks, and Global Resolver. Applicable when the customer wants to point a hostname at a target, split or fail over traffic across endpoints, monitor an endpoint, block malicious domains, centralize DNS across accounts, or resolve private DNS across a hybrid network. Routes to the right per-task procedure in references. Does not cover CloudFront-specific setup (see the route53-cloudfront skill) or non-DNS networking.

Configures Amazon Route 53 to route traffic to a CloudFront distribution using a custom domain. Use when setting up DNS alias records, alternate domain names (CNAMEs), ACM certificates for HTTPS, and IPv6 support for CloudFront.

Configures EC2 instances to securely call AWS services by creating and attaching IAM roles via instance profiles, eliminating hardcoded credentials. Use when an EC2 instance needs permissions to access AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, SQS, or CloudWatch through temporary credentials.

Configures AWS Shield Advanced for enhanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection: subscribing accounts and adding resource protections, enabling automatic application layer (layer 7) mitigation through AWS WAF, configuring health-based detection with Route 53 health checks, setting up Shield Response Team (SRT) access and proactive engagement, reviewing DDoS events and requesting cost protection credits, and aggregating resources into protection groups. Applicable when the user wants stronger DDoS protection for internet-facing resources (CloudFront, Application or Network Load Balancers, Elastic IP addresses, Global Accelerator, or Route 53 hosted zones), wants expert help during an attack, or wants to recover attack-driven scaling charges. Routes to the right per-task procedure in references. Not applicable for authoring AWS WAF rules (waf skill), creating Route 53 health checks (route53 skill), or org-wide Shield Advanced rollout with Firewall Manager (firewallmanager skill).

Gets AWS credentials for CLI/SDK access via `aws login`. Activates when a developer needs to authenticate to AWS for local development, when an AWS operation fails due to missing or expired credentials, or when someone asks about setting up AWS access. Triggers: "set up AWS", "configure AWS", "aws login", "get credentials", "authenticate", "session expired", "token expired", "no credentials", "AccessDeniedException" with no configured credentials.

Configures AWS Site-to-Site VPN: creating an IPsec VPN connection between an on-premises network and a VPC, choosing the target gateway (virtual private gateway, transit gateway, or AWS Cloud WAN), choosing static or dynamic (BGP) routing, sizing tunnel bandwidth (Standard 1.25 Gbps or Large 5 Gbps), connecting many sites through a VPN Concentrator, applying the customer gateway device configuration, making a connection highly available, and monitoring tunnels with CloudWatch. Applicable when the user wants to connect a data center or branch office to AWS over an encrypted tunnel, choose how routes are exchanged, scale throughput, consolidate sites, or diagnose a down tunnel. Routes to the right per-task procedure in references. Not for AWS Direct Connect (its own service), Client VPN for individual remote users, the transit gateway side of a VPN attachment (transitgateway skill), or Route 53 DNS work.

Configures AWS Transit Gateway: creating a hub and attaching VPCs, segmenting traffic with route tables, centralizing egress and inspection through a hub (appliances or a Gateway Load Balancer endpoint), forcing east-west traffic between VPCs through AWS Network Firewall, connecting on-premises networks over the transit-gateway side of a Site-to-Site VPN or Direct Connect attachment (including ECMP to aggregate bandwidth across multiple VPN tunnels), peering transit gateways across Regions, migrating from a VPC peering mesh, and routing IP multicast. Applicable when connecting many VPCs through one router, isolating environments, forcing VPC-to-VPC traffic through a central Network Firewall, reaching on-premises over the hub, linking Regions, or moving off a peering mesh. Not applicable for single-VPC routing, VPC peering between two VPCs (vpcpeering skill), Direct Connect gateway or virtual interface setup (directconnect skill), or Route 53 DNS work.

Diagnoses and resolves Amazon EFS issues including mount failures, NFS timeouts, permission errors, throughput problems, and burst credit exhaustion. Use when the user has an EFS file system that is not mounting, returning errors, performing slowly, or showing access denied.

Diagnoses and resolves Amazon S3 Files issues including mount failures, permission errors, synchronization problems, and performance issues. Use when the user has an S3 file system that is not mounting, returning access denied, not syncing changes to S3, showing files in lost+found, or performing slower than expected.

Configures AWS WAF to filter web traffic: creating web access control lists (web ACLs) on CloudFront, Application Load Balancers, API Gateway, and AppSync; AWS Managed Rules tuned in Count mode; rate-based rules for HTTP floods; IP set and geographic match rules; Bot Control (Common and Targeted); turning bot labels into a confidence signal; stripping spoofed inbound x-amzn-waf-* headers; recovering the real client IP behind a CDN; Fraud Control (account takeover and account creation fraud prevention); and logging and request sampling. Use when the user wants to protect a web application or API from common exploits, bots, credential stuffing, fake-account creation, or HTTP floods at the application layer (layer 7). Routes to the right per-task procedure in references. Do NOT use for L3/L4 DDoS protection (shieldadvanced skill), multi-account WAF rollout (firewallmanager skill), CloudFront configuration (cloudfront skill), or Route 53 health checks or records (route53 skill).