Aws Ami Builder

This builds custom AMIs using Packer's amazon-ebs builder, which is what you want when you need reproducible EC2 images instead of clicking through the AWS console. The skill covers the full workflow from basic templates to multi-region copying, with ready-to-use source AMI filters for Ubuntu and Amazon Linux. One thing to know upfront is that each build spins up actual EC2 instances and takes 10-30 minutes, so you're paying for that compute time. The authentication setup is straightforward since it uses standard AWS credential resolution, and the troubleshooting section addresses the usual SSH timeout headaches.

skills.sh installs: 3.3K
GitHub stars: 924
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add hashicorp/agent-skills --skill aws-ami-builder --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

AWS AMI Builder

Build Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) using Packer's amazon-ebs builder.

Reference: Amazon EBS Builder

Note: Building AMIs incurs AWS costs (EC2 instances, EBS storage, data transfer). Builds typically take 10-30 minutes depending on provisioning complexity.

Basic AMI Template

packer {
  required_plugins {
    amazon = {
      source  = "github.com/hashicorp/amazon"
      version = "~> 1.3"
    }
  }
}

variable "region" {
  type    = string
  default = "us-west-2"
}

locals {
  timestamp = regex_replace(timestamp(), "[- TZ:]", "")
}

source "amazon-ebs" "ubuntu" {
  region        = var.region
  instance_type = "t3.micro"

  source_ami_filter {
    filters = {
      name                = "ubuntu/images/*ubuntu-jammy-22.04-amd64-server-*"
      root-device-type    = "ebs"
      virtualization-type = "hvm"
    }
    most_recent = true
    owners      = ["099720109477"] # Canonical
  }

  ssh_username = "ubuntu"
  ami_name     = "my-app-${local.timestamp}"

  tags = {
    Name      = "my-app"
    BuildDate = local.timestamp
  }
}

SKILL.md on GitHub