AWS CLI v2 — ECS (Elastic Container Service)

Overview

Complete reference for all aws ecs subcommands in AWS CLI v2. Covers cluster management, service orchestration, task execution, task definition registration, container instance management, and capacity providers.

Quick Reference — Common Workflows

Create a cluster

bash

aws ecs create-cluster --cluster-name my-cluster \
  --capacity-providers my-asg-cp \
  --default-capacity-provider-strategy capacityProvider=my-asg-cp,weight=1

Register a task definition

bash

aws ecs register-task-definition --cli-input-json file://task-def.json

Create a service

bash

aws ecs create-service --cluster my-cluster --service-name my-service \
  --task-definition my-task:1 --desired-count 2 \
  --launch-type EC2

Run a standalone task

bash

aws ecs run-task --cluster my-cluster --task-definition my-task:1 \
  --count 1 --launch-type EC2

Update service (deploy new task def revision)

bash

aws ecs update-service --cluster my-cluster --service-name my-service \
  --task-definition my-task:2
aws ecs wait services-stable --cluster my-cluster --services my-service

List container instances and drain

bash

aws ecs list-container-instances --cluster my-cluster --query 'containerInstanceArns'
aws ecs update-container-instances-state --cluster my-cluster \
  --container-instances arn:aws:ecs:... --status DRAINING

Create capacity provider linked to ASG

bash

aws ecs create-capacity-provider --name my-asg-cp \
  --auto-scaling-group-provider autoScalingGroupArn=arn:aws:autoscaling:...,managedScaling={status=ENABLED,targetCapacity=80},managedTerminationProtection=ENABLED

Command Reference

See references/index.md for the quick reference table and global options.

Group	File	Commands
Clusters	`clusters.md`	create-cluster, delete-cluster, describe-clusters, list-clusters, update-cluster, update-cluster-settings, put-cluster-capacity-providers
Services	`services.md`	create-service, delete-service, describe-services, list-services, update-service, update-service-primary-task-set
Tasks	`tasks.md`	run-task, start-task, stop-task, describe-tasks, list-tasks
Task Definitions	`task-definitions.md`	register-task-definition, deregister-task-definition, describe-task-definition, list-task-definitions, list-task-definition-families, delete-task-definitions
Container Instances	`container-instances.md`	register-container-instance, deregister-container-instance, describe-container-instances, list-container-instances, update-container-instances-state, update-container-agent
Capacity Providers	`capacity-providers.md`	create-capacity-provider, delete-capacity-provider, describe-capacity-providers, update-capacity-provider
Task Sets	`task-sets.md`	create-task-set, delete-task-set, describe-task-sets, update-task-set
Account Settings	`account-settings.md`	list-account-settings, put-account-setting, put-account-setting-default, delete-account-setting
Service Deployments	`service-deployments.md`	list-service-deployments, describe-service-deployments, describe-service-revisions
Tags	`tags.md`	tag-resource, untag-resource, list-tags-for-resource
Attributes	`attributes.md`	put-attributes, delete-attributes, list-attributes
Execute Command	`execute-command.md`	execute-command
Task Protection	`task-protection.md`	get-task-protection, update-task-protection