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d-padmanabhand-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook/skills/aws-iam/SKILL.md

aws-iam

Skill17 starsChanged 56 days agoMITView on GitHub

AWS IAM deep-dive skill - principal types, policy evaluation, STS assume role, SCP guardrails, KMS key policies/grants, and AccessDenied debugging. Use when designing AWS authz/authn, cross-account access, or troubleshooting IAM/KMS/SCP AccessDenied errors.

6 other projects use a version of this.

Adopted by

Most recently taken up by

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

2 rules. 0 are common, 2 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 0

    Common

    Most of the 5 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 2

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    Use this skill when you are working on:

    line 10
  2. Distinctive:

    Look for explicit deny first (it wins)

    line 29

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 5 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

AWS IAM

When to use

Use this skill when you are working on:

  • IAM principals (users, roles, assumed-role sessions, service principals)
  • Trust policies (sts:AssumeRole*) and cross-account access
  • Identity-based vs resource-based policies
  • Permission boundaries, session policies, and Organizations SCPs
  • KMS key policies, grants, and kms:Decrypt / kms:GenerateDataKey failures
  • Debugging AccessDenied in AWS (including cross-account and KMS)

What to do (workflow)

  1. Identify the runtime principal (often an STS assumed-role ARN)
  2. Identify the action + resource ARN(s) from the error or design requirement
  3. Determine which policy layers are in play:
    • identity-based policy
    • resource-based policy
    • permission boundary
    • session policy
    • SCP (Organizations)
  4. Look for explicit deny first (it wins)
  5. For cross-account flows:
    • validate the trust policy (who can assume)
    • validate the permission policy (what the role can do)
    • validate any resource policy (who can access the target resource)
  6. For KMS:
    • validate key policy + IAM policy + any grant constraints

References

  • references/iam-authorization-model.md
  • references/cross-account-and-externalid.md
  • references/cross-service-confused-deputy.md
  • references/kms-key-policy-and-grants.md
  • references/eks-pod-identity-abac-and-lattice.md

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