Amazon Q CLI

Website	GitHub	License
aws.amazon.com/q	aws/amazon-q-developer-cli	Apache 2.0 & MIT

Amazon Q CLI (also known simply as q) is a command-line companion that brings Amazon Q’s AI-powered chat and autocompletion features to your terminal.

With q you can have a natural-language conversation, translate plain-English requests into shell commands, and receive inline completions for more than 500 popular CLIs such as git, docker, and aws.

Key Features

• q chat interactive mode: Ask questions and get answers directly in the terminal.
• Command generation & translation: Convert natural-language instructions into executable shell commands.
• Inline completions: Context-aware suggestions as you type, based on your shell history and current directory.
• Git-aware context: Includes file diffs and project structure to refine answers and code suggestions.
• Profiles & hooks: Fine-grained control over what context is shared, with the ability to extend via custom hooks.

Installation

Below is a condensed overview. See the official installation guide for full details.

macOS (Homebrew)

brew tap aws/tap
brew install amazon-q-cli

Alternatively, download the signed Amazon Q.dmg and drag the app to Applications. Launch once to enable shell integrations.

Linux AppImage

curl -LO https://desktop-release.q.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/latest/amazon-q.appimage
chmod +x amazon-q.appimage
./amazon-q.appimage

For headless servers, download the minimal zip that contains only the q and qterm binaries.

Ubuntu / Debian package

wget https://desktop-release.q.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/latest/amazon-q_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./amazon-q_amd64.deb

Quickstart

1. Authenticate:

bash q login

Sign in with your AWS Builder ID or IAM Identity Center credentials. 2. Start a chat session inside your project:

bash q chat 3. For inline completions, ensure the installer added the appropriate hook to your shell (zsh, bash, or fish).

Links

• Docs – Using Q on the command line: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qdeveloper-ug/command-line.html
• CLI reference: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qdeveloper-ug/command-line-reference.html
• GitHub: https://github.com/aws/amazon-q-developer-cli
• Supported environments: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qdeveloper-ug/command-line-supported-envs.html