AWS CLI version 1 is no longer on the full-support track. It entered maintenance mode in 2026 and is scheduled to reach end of support on July 15, 2027. If your scripts, CI jobs, or jump boxes still call aws from a v1 install, this is the window to plan the move — not after the cutoff.
What changed
During maintenance mode, AWS limits CLI v1 releases to critical bug fixes and security updates. You should not expect:
- New service support
- Ongoing API updates for existing services
- Expanded region or endpoint coverage
Existing v1 commands generally keep working unless a service makes a rare breaking change. After end of support (July 15, 2027), even those critical updates stop.
AWS has also changed how v1 bundles dependencies such as botocore and s3transfer (vendoring), so upgrading CLI v1 no longer behaves like a normal pip dependency bump for those libraries. That is another reason to treat v1 as a dead end for new work.
Why it matters
A lot of “works on my machine” AWS automation is still v1 because it shipped with older AMIs, corporate images, or long-lived containers. Those pipelines will keep running for a while — then quietly miss new APIs, flags, and service coverage that v2 already has.
Who should care
- Anyone running AWS CLI in CI/CD, cron, or Terraform helper scripts
- Teams standardizing on shared bastion/jump hosts
- Readers following Daily Code Guide AWS CLI tutorials (those assume a modern CLI workflow)
What to do next
- Check the version:
aws --version - If you see
aws-cli/1.x, install and switch to AWS CLI v2 - Re-test the commands you use most (ELB, Auto Scaling, IAM, S3)
- Update images and pipeline base images so new jobs do not resurrect v1
Related guides
- AWS CLI Elastic Load Balancer Commands: Inspect and Manage Targets
- How to Manage EC2 Auto Scaling Groups with AWS CLI Commands
