deploy-on-aws

Agent Plugins for AWS

[!IMPORTANT] Generative AI can make mistakes. You should consider reviewing all output and costs generated by your chosen AI model and agentic coding assistant. See AWS Responsible AI Policy.

Agent Plugins for AWS equip AI coding agents with the skills to help you architect, deploy, and operate on AWS. Agent plugins are currently supported by Claude Code and Cursor.

AI coding agents are increasingly used in software development, helping developers write, review, and deploy code more efficiently. Agent skills and the broader agent plugin packaging model are emerging as best practices for steering coding agents toward reliable outcomes without bloating model context. Instead of repeatedly pasting long AWS guidance into prompts, developers can now encode that guidance as reusable, versioned capabilities that agents invoke when relevant. This improves determinism, reduces context overhead, and makes agent behavior easier to standardize across teams. Agent plugins act as containers that package different types of expertise artifacts together. A single agent plugin can include:

• Agent skills – Structured workflows and best-practice playbooks that guide AI through complex tasks like deployment, code review, or architecture planning. Agent skills encode domain expertise as step-by-step processes.
• MCP servers – Connections to external services, data sources, and APIs. MCP servers give your assistant access to live documentation, pricing data, and other resources at runtime. Learn more about MCP servers for AWS.
• Hooks – Automation and guardrails that run on developer actions. Hooks can validate changes, enforce standards, or trigger workflows automatically.
• References – Documentation, configuration defaults, and knowledge that the agent skill can consult. References make agent skills smarter without bloating the prompt.

As new types of expertise artifacts emerge in this space, they can be packaged into agent plugins, making the evolution transparent to developers.

Best practices

To maximize the benefits of plugin-assisted development while maintaining security and code quality, follow these essential guidelines:

• Always review generated code before deployment (for example, against your constraints for security, cost, resilience)
• Use plugins as accelerators, not replacements for developer judgment and expertise.
• Keep plugins updated to benefit from the latest AWS best practices.
• Follow the principle of least privilege when configuring AWS credentials.
• Run security scanning tools on generated infrastructure code.

Plugins

Plugin	Description	Status
deploy-on-aws	Deploy applications to AWS with architecture recommendations, cost estimates, and IaC deployment	Available

Installation

Claude Code

Add the marketplace

/plugin marketplace add awslabs/agent-plugins

Install a plugin

/plugin install deploy-on-aws@agent-plugins-for-aws

Cursor

You can install the deploy-on-aws plugin from the Cursor Marketplace. For additional information, please refer to the Cursor plugin documentation. You can also install within the Cursor application:

• Open Cursor Settings
• Navigate to Plugins
• Search for AWS
• Select the plugin you want to install and click Add to Cursor
• Select the scope for the installed plugin
• The plugin should appear under Plugins -> Installed

deploy-on-aws

Equips agents with the skills to accelerate AWS deployment - recommending AWS architectures and services, estimating costs, generating Infrastructure as Code (CDK or CloudFormation), and guiding you through deployment.

Workflow

1. Analyze - Scan codebase for framework, database, dependencies
2. Recommend - Select AWS services with concise rationale
3. Estimate - Show cost estimates before proceeding
4. Generate - Write IaC code (CDK/CloudFormation)
5. Deploy - Execute with user confirmation

Agent Skill Triggers

Agent Skill	Triggers
deploy	"deploy to AWS", "host on AWS", "run this on AWS", "AWS architecture", "estimate AWS cost", "generate infrastructure"

MCP Servers