Amazon Q Developer CLI Helped Me Clone EC2 in One Prompt — No Console, No YAML

Hello Devs, you might have heard about the recent release of Amazon Q Developer CLI. I heard about it too, but like most tools, it sat on my radar until the moment I truly needed it - a real-time use case that made me glad I gave it a shot. It started with a small request... and a potential disaster. One of our developers was testing a machine learning model on an EC2 instance. A regular dev task, nothing fancy. But a few hours in, he messaged me: “Something’s off with the setup. I don’t want to break anything — can I get a clone of this machine to test on?” Fair ask. But the instance he was using was one we also used for other internal dev workflows. Any changes could have unintended consequences. My default plan? Console clicks and lots of waiting. Cloning an EC2 isn’t rocket science — but it’s tedious: Open AWS Console Go to EC2 Find the instance Create an AMI Wait for the AMI to become available Launch a new instance from it Manually select the same instance type, security groups, IAM role... Hope nothing breaks during this dance It’s not hard, but I’ve done it too many times to count — and it always eats up 15–20 minutes, minimum. This time, I tried something different. Amazon Q Developer CLI. I had recently installed Amazon Q Developer CLI after reading about it. A command-line assistant that understands natural language prompts and turns them into real AWS commands? I had to try it. So instead of diving into the Console, I opened my terminal: q chat And typed: “Create a new EC2 instance from the existing one named ml-base-server. Use the same security group and IAM role.” That’s it. One sentence. No flags. No resource IDs. What happened next blew me away. Amazon Q Developer CLI: Identified the instance from its Name tag (ml-base-server) Generated an AMI creation command Waited for the AMI to become available Created a new EC2 instance using: The same instance type The same security group(s) The same IAM role Even prompted me to confirm each step before executing No scrolling. No searching. Just… done. The result? My dev got a clean copy. Our base setup stayed untouched. He could now run experiments safely. No stress, no last-minute surprises, no Console hopping. What would have taken 15+ minutes manually was done in under 3 — right from my terminal. Why this matters We often think of DevOps automation in terms of scripting or building pipelines. But sometimes, what you really want is a conversation. That’s what Amazon Q Developer CLI gives you: You say what you want in plain English It figures out how to do it You still keep control with confirmations For small-but-important infra tasks like this, it’s a game-changer. Try it yourself If you haven’t used Amazon Q Developer CLI yet, get started here:

Apr 16, 2025 - 04:22

Amazon Q Developer CLI Helped Me Clone EC2 in One Prompt — No Console, No YAML

Hello Devs,

you might have heard about the recent release of Amazon Q Developer CLI.

I heard about it too, but like most tools, it sat on my radar until the moment I truly needed it - a real-time use case that made me glad I gave it a shot.

It started with a small request... and a potential disaster.

One of our developers was testing a machine learning model on an EC2 instance. A regular dev task, nothing fancy.

But a few hours in, he messaged me:

“Something’s off with the setup. I don’t want to break anything — can I get a clone of this machine to test on?”

Fair ask. But the instance he was using was one we also used for other internal dev workflows. Any changes could have unintended consequences.

My default plan? Console clicks and lots of waiting.

Cloning an EC2 isn’t rocket science — but it’s tedious:

Open AWS Console
Go to EC2
Find the instance
Create an AMI
Wait for the AMI to become available
Launch a new instance from it
Manually select the same instance type, security groups, IAM role...
Hope nothing breaks during this dance

It’s not hard, but I’ve done it too many times to count — and it always eats up 15–20 minutes, minimum.

This time, I tried something different. Amazon Q Developer CLI.

I had recently installed Amazon Q Developer CLI after reading about it.

A command-line assistant that understands natural language prompts and turns them into real AWS commands? I had to try it.

So instead of diving into the Console, I opened my terminal:

q chat

And typed:

“Create a new EC2 instance from the existing one named ml-base-server. Use the same security group and IAM role.”

That’s it. One sentence. No flags. No resource IDs.

What happened next blew me away.

Amazon Q Developer CLI:

Identified the instance from its Name tag (ml-base-server)
Generated an AMI creation command
Waited for the AMI to become available
Created a new EC2 instance using:
- The same instance type
- The same security group(s)
- The same IAM role
Even prompted me to confirm each step before executing

No scrolling. No searching. Just… done.

The result? My dev got a clean copy. Our base setup stayed untouched.

He could now run experiments safely.

No stress, no last-minute surprises, no Console hopping.

What would have taken 15+ minutes manually was done in under 3 — right from my terminal.

Why this matters

We often think of DevOps automation in terms of scripting or building pipelines.

But sometimes, what you really want is a conversation.

That’s what Amazon Q Developer CLI gives you:

You say what you want in plain English
It figures out how to do it
You still keep control with confirmations

For small-but-important infra tasks like this, it’s a game-changer.

Try it yourself

If you haven’t used Amazon Q Developer CLI yet, get started here: