AWS ECS

Manage ECS clusters, services, and tasks.

Environment Variables

• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY - AWS credentials
• AWS_DEFAULT_REGION - Region

List clusters

aws ecs list-clusters --query 'clusterArns[]' --output table

Describe cluster

aws ecs describe-clusters --clusters my-cluster --query 'clusters[].{Name:clusterName,Status:status,Running:runningTasksCount,Pending:pendingTasksCount,Services:activeServicesCount}' --output table

List services

aws ecs list-services --cluster my-cluster --query 'serviceArns[]' --output table

Describe service

aws ecs describe-services --cluster my-cluster --services my-service --query 'services[].{Name:serviceName,Status:status,Running:runningCount,Desired:desiredCount,TaskDef:taskDefinition}' --output table

Update service (force new deployment)

aws ecs update-service --cluster my-cluster --service my-service --force-new-deployment | jq '{serviceName: .service.serviceName, desiredCount: .service.desiredCount}'

Scale service

aws ecs update-service --cluster my-cluster --service my-service --desired-count 3 | jq '{serviceName: .service.serviceName, desiredCount: .service.desiredCount}'

List tasks

aws ecs list-tasks --cluster my-cluster --service-name my-service --query 'taskArns[]' --output table

Describe tasks

aws ecs describe-tasks --cluster my-cluster --tasks $(aws ecs list-tasks --cluster my-cluster --service-name my-service --query 'taskArns[0]' --output text) --query 'tasks[].{TaskId:taskArn,Status:lastStatus,Health:healthStatus,StartedAt:startedAt}' --output table

View task logs

aws logs tail /ecs/my-service --since 30m --format short

Describe task definition

aws ecs describe-task-definition --task-definition my-task-def --query 'taskDefinition.{Family:family,Revision:revision,Cpu:cpu,Memory:memory,Containers:containerDefinitions[].{Name:name,Image:image,Cpu:cpu,Memory:memory}}' | jq .

List task definition revisions

aws ecs list-task-definitions --family-prefix my-task-def --sort DESC --query 'taskDefinitionArns[:5]' --output table

Run standalone task

aws ecs run-task --cluster my-cluster --task-definition my-task-def --count 1 --launch-type FARGATE \
  --network-configuration 'awsvpcConfiguration={subnets=[subnet-xxx],securityGroups=[sg-xxx],assignPublicIp=ENABLED}' | jq '.tasks[].taskArn'

Notes

• Use --force-new-deployment to trigger a rolling update with the same task definition.
• Confirm before scaling, updating, or stopping services.
• Fargate tasks require network configuration; EC2 launch type may not.