What is copilot-cli?

AWS Copilot is a command-line tool from Amazon Web Services for deploying containerized applications to AWS infrastructure. A container is a packaged version of an application that includes everything it needs to run, and Copilot takes that container and handles all the AWS configuration needed to run it reliably at scale, without requiring you to set up each piece manually. The tool targets developers who have a Dockerfile (a file that describes how to build a container) and want to get it running on AWS quickly. Copilot can create the networking infrastructure, load balancers, and compute resources automatically. According to the README, a sample app can be up and running on AWS in under 10 minutes with a single command. Beyond initial deployment, Copilot also helps with the broader application lifecycle. You can use it to set up separate test and production environments, create continuous delivery pipelines that automatically build and deploy new versions of your code when changes are pushed, and monitor or debug running services directly from your terminal. It is designed to manage groups of related services together as a single application, which is useful when a product is split across multiple independently deployable pieces. Under the hood, Copilot runs applications on Amazon ECS and AWS Fargate. ECS is Amazon's container orchestration service, and Fargate is a mode of running containers where AWS manages the underlying servers so you do not have to. Note: the repository description states that AWS Copilot CLI will reach end-of-support on June 12, 2026, so it is no longer actively developed and users should plan to move to other AWS tooling. The tool is available on macOS and Linux, with installation via Homebrew or a direct binary download from GitHub releases.