Configuration

Configuration

SSM Explorer uses a TOML config file located at:

~/.config/ssm-explorer/config.toml

Initialize it with:

ssm-explorer config init

---

Config File Structure

[aws]
profile = ""         # Default AWS profile (optional)
region  = ""         # Default AWS region (optional)

[aws.profiles.prod_account]
region = "eu-west-1"

[aws.profiles.dev_account]
region = "us-east-2"

[search]
fetch_strategy = "auto"   # "auto" | "batch" | "path"
max_get_tps      = 20
max_describe_tps = 3

---

Profile-to-Region Mapping

Map AWS profile names to their regions so you never have to pass --region manually:

[aws.profiles.prod_account]
region = "eu-west-1"

[aws.profiles.dev_account]
region = "us-east-2"

With this config, the following command automatically uses eu-west-1:

ssm-explorer list /app/config --profile prod_account

This is especially powerful with the diff command — both sides inherit their mapped regions automatically:

ssm-explorer diff /app/config --profile-a dev_account --profile-b prod_account

---

Auto-Resolve Profile from Environment Tags

If your runtime environment already exposes environment tags (e.g. Environment=myapp-prod), you can auto-resolve the AWS profile without passing --profile at all.

[aws]
profile = ""
region  = "eu-west-1"
profile_from_env_tags = ["Environment", "APP_ENV", "ENVIRONMENT"]

[aws.profile_from_env_value_map]
myapp-prod    = "prod_account"
myapp-staging = "stage_account"

Resolution Order

SSM Explorer resolves the active profile in this order:

1. --profile CLI flag
2. aws.profile value in config
3. First non-empty env tag from aws.profile_from_env_tags (optionally remapped via aws.profile_from_env_value_map)

---

Fetch Strategy

Control how parameters are fetched from AWS:

Strategy	Behaviour
auto (default)	Uses batch mode; falls back to path if IAM denies extra read APIs
batch	Fetches parameter names via DescribeParameters (pages of 50), then values via parallel GetParameters (batches of 10)
path	Uses the original single-API GetParametersByPath flow

[search]
fetch_strategy   = "auto"
max_get_tps      = 20
max_describe_tps = 3

Rate limits: Defaults are max_get_tps = 20 and max_describe_tps = 3 to stay within standard AWS Parameter Store quotas.

---

Next Steps

• See Commands for full CLI usage
• See Multi-Account & Multi-Region for cross-account workflows