AWS Compute

AWSOfficialPublished by AWS

Skill
Tool integration
Cloud and DevOps
Apache-2.0
No issues found

From the author

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.

— the description by AWS

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides operational guidance for Amazon EC2, covering the full lifecycle of virtual machine workloads. It addresses instance-type selection, launch template configuration, Auto Scaling group (ASG) management, and fleet operations via AWS Systems Manager. It is designed to help users navigate common pitfalls like IMDSv2 configuration, health check settings, and cost-optimization strategies for burstable instances, while providing clear troubleshooting paths for connectivity, capacity, and status-check failures.

What it does

Guides instance-type selection including Graviton, GPU, and burstable T-series options.
Configures Auto Scaling groups with scaling policies, instance refresh, and lifecycle hooks.
Manages AMI lifecycles including deprecation, disabling, and cross-account sharing.
Facilitates fleet operations like patching and SSH-less access via Systems Manager.
Provides troubleshooting steps for common EC2 errors like InsufficientInstanceCapacity and status-check failures.
Enforces security best practices such as IMDSv2 and instance profile usage.

When to use it

When designing or scaling an EC2-based compute fleet.
When troubleshooting connectivity, capacity, or health check issues in an ASG.
When optimizing EC2 costs through instance-type selection or Spot instance usage.
When performing rolling updates or AMI migrations across a fleet.
When configuring secure, SSH-less management for private instances.

Advantages

Centralizes complex EC2 operational knowledge and common configuration pitfalls.
Provides actionable troubleshooting tables for rapid incident resolution.
Promotes security-first configurations like IMDSv2 and Session Manager.
Clarifies the distinction between deprecated and modern provisioning methods.
Offers clear guidance on cost-saving strategies like Graviton and Spot instances.

Usage examples

“How do I ensure my Auto Scaling group replaces instances that fail my load balancer health checks?”: The agent explains that ASGs ignore ELB health checks by default and provides the command to set --health-check-type ELB.
“My instances are stuck in Pending:Wait state, what is happening?”: The agent identifies that a lifecycle hook is likely waiting for a heartbeat and provides the command to complete the action.
“How can I safely roll out a new AMI to my existing fleet?”: The agent details the process of updating the launch template to a specific version and initiating an instance refresh.
“Why am I getting an InsufficientInstanceCapacity error?”: The agent clarifies that this is an AWS capacity issue in a specific AZ, not a user quota, and suggests trying a different AZ or instance type.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/aws/aws-compute/download

Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip aws-compute.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by AWS

Amazon EC2 Compute

Best experience with the AWS MCP server; also works with the AWS CLI alone — no hard dependency on either.

Critical Warnings

Launch configurations are deprecated and do not support current EC2 instance types; new accounts cannot create them. Use launch templates for every new Auto Scaling group. See auto-scaling.md.

ASGs ignore ELB health checks by default: An Auto Scaling group only uses EC2 status checks unless you set --health-check-type ELB. Without it, instances failing the load balancer's health check stay in service forever. See auto-scaling.md.

IMDSv2 hop limit breaks containers: the default HttpPutResponseHopLimit of 1 makes the IMDSv2 token PUT response fail to reach a containerized process (the extra hop exceeds the response TTL), so the token request times out. Set HttpPutResponseHopLimit=2 for bridge/awsvpc container workloads. (If IMDSv2 is required, a subsequent tokenless GET returns 401; if optional, it silently falls back to IMDSv1.) See provisioning.md.

T3/T3a/T4g default to unlimited mode: Unlike T2 (standard), these burst without throttling but bill surplus CPU credits when 24h-average CPU exceeds baseline — a silent cost leak. See instance-selection.md.

Instance store is ephemeral: Data on instance store volumes is lost on stop, hibernate, terminate, instance-type change, and host failure — it survives only a reboot. Put anything durable on EBS/EFS/S3. See instance-selection.md.

Which do you need?

If you're deciding...	Guidance
Instance family / size / Graviton / GPU / burstable	instance-selection.md — start with the workload→family table
How to define instances once and reuse (launch template)	provisioning.md
How to run many instances that scale automatically	auto-scaling.md
How to access/patch/manage instances without SSH keys	systems-manager.md

You want to...	Go to
Pick an instance type, Graviton vs x86, burstable credits, GPU, instance store vs EBS	instance-selection.md
Create a launch template, user data, key pairs, IMDSv2, placement groups, Elastic IPs	provisioning.md
Set up or fix an Auto Scaling group, scaling policies, instance refresh, Spot, lifecycle hooks	auto-scaling.md
Get SSH-less access, patch a fleet, or fix an instance not showing as a managed node	systems-manager.md
Create, share, or retire (deprecate/disable/deregister) an AMI	ami-management.md
Fix something broken (can't connect, status-check fail, capacity error, stuck instances)	troubleshooting.md

Common Workflows

"Stand up an autoscaling web fleet" → Create a launch template (AMI, type, IMDSv2), then an ASG referencing it with --health-check-type ELB and a target-tracking policy, see auto-scaling.md. For the public entry point, secure the load balancer (TLS/ACM, WAF, security response headers) per the Security Considerations below and the load-balancer notes in auto-scaling.md — the load-balancer build itself belongs to aws-networking.

"Roll out a new AMI to my fleet" → New launch template version → instance refresh; pin a numeric launch-template version so rollback works, see auto-scaling.md.

"Connect to a private instance without a bastion" → Give the instance SSM permissions (an instance profile with AmazonSSMManagedInstanceCore, or account-level DHMC) plus a network path, then use Session Manager, see systems-manager.md.

"Cut EC2 cost" → Right-size (burstable vs fixed-performance), Graviton where the app supports Arm64, Spot with price-capacity-optimized for fault-tolerant fleets, release idle Elastic IPs, see instance-selection.md.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Quick fix
SSH "Connection timed out"	Network path (SG/NACL/route/no public IP)	Open TCP 22 from your IP; check route to IGW; verify public IP — see troubleshooting.md
SSH "Connection refused"	Host: sshd down or still booting	Wait for boot; check sshd/port via Session Manager or serial console
`InsufficientInstanceCapacity`	AWS lacks capacity of that type in the AZ (NOT a quota)	Try another AZ / instance type / retry; don't request a quota increase
`InstanceLimitExceeded`	vCPU quota reached (this IS a quota)	Request a Service Quotas increase for the instance family
ASG never replaces LB-unhealthy instances	Health check type still EC2	Set `--health-check-type ELB`
Instances stuck in `Pending:Wait`, terminated after ~1h	Lifecycle hook never completed (heartbeat 3600s, default ABANDON)	Call `complete-lifecycle-action` CONTINUE, or set DefaultResult CONTINUE
System status check failed	AWS host/hardware	Stop/start to migrate to new hardware (reboot won't)
Instance status check failed	Instance OS/network config	Reboot or fix the OS/network config

Full tables and more errors in troubleshooting.md.

Security Considerations

Enforce IMDSv2 (HttpTokens=required) on launch templates to block SSRF-based credential theft; set the account-level default per Region (applies to new launches only).
Prefer Session Manager over inbound SSH — no open port 22, no key management, and a CloudTrail record of session API calls; enable Session Manager session logging to CloudWatch Logs/S3 (off by default) to capture the in-session commands themselves — see systems-manager.md.
Use instance profiles, never embedded credentials; scope the role to least privilege.
Encrypt EBS/AMIs; to share an encrypted AMI cross-account, re-encrypt under a customer-managed KMS key (the default aws/ebs key can't be shared).
Enable CloudTrail in all Regions to audit EC2/ASG/SSM API activity, and alarm on sensitive actions (security-group changes, RunInstances/TerminateInstances from unexpected principals) so unauthorized changes surface.
For public-facing web fleets, encrypt traffic in transit with an ACM certificate on the load balancer's HTTPS listener and add AWS WAF for defense in depth against common web exploits — the load-balancer/WAF setup itself lives in aws-networking.
For hardening beyond this guidance, see AWS EC2 security best practices and CIS Benchmarks for the guest OS.

Not Covered By This Skill

Launching a single hardened instance with best-practice defaults → use the launching-ec2-instance-with-best-practices skill
Creating IAM roles / instance profiles for EC2 → use the setting-up-ec2-instance-profiles skill
Building AMIs with an Image Builder pipeline → use the amazon-ec2-image-builder skill
Lambda / serverless → aws-serverless; ECS/Fargate → aws-containers; EKS/Kubernetes → kubernetes
VPC, subnets, ALB/NLB, endpoints → aws-networking or built-in knowledge
IAM policy logic and CloudWatch dashboards/agent setup → aws-iam, aws-observability

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer887 B
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer9.9 KiB
NOTICELicence file added by AutoGineer67 B
SKILL.md8.7 KiB
references/ami-management.md5.9 KiB
references/auto-scaling.md10.1 KiB
references/instance-selection.md5.7 KiB
references/provisioning.md9.2 KiB
references/systems-manager.md7.4 KiB
references/troubleshooting.md5.7 KiB

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs an MCP server, Needs Node.js

Security

No issues found by our static scan· No issues found

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Attribution and licence

Published by

AWS

Publisher

AWS (Official)

Source

aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws · skills/core-skills/aws-compute · commit 0a218f8

Licence

Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
NOTICE (added by AutoGineer from NOTICE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-09

Also distributed in

aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by AWS or AWS.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download aws-compute.zip