setting-up-ec2-instance-profiles

Configures EC2 instances to securely call AWS services by creating and attaching IAM roles via instance profiles, eliminating hardcoded credentials. Use when an EC2 instance needs permissions to access AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, SQS, or CloudWatch through temporary credentials.

Quality

83%

Does it follow best practices?

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Securityby

Passed

No findings from the security scan

Quality

Content

80%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

A concise, well-organized skill body that assumes Claude's knowledge and uses progressive disclosure cleanly. The main weakness is workflow clarity: the core setup sequence lives off-page and the destructive profile-replacement step lacks explicit inline validation checkpoints.

Suggestions

Inline a brief numbered sequence for the configure workflow with an explicit validation/verification checkpoint (e.g. confirm credentials are available via the instance metadata endpoint) before declaring success.

Add an explicit validation step after the destructive profile-replacement operation rather than only noting that the procedure will prompt before disassociating the existing profile.

Surface one or two of the most critical setup commands inline so the primary action is executable without opening the reference file.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	Lean and efficient body that assumes Claude's competence — no padding or explanations of EC2/IAM/S3 concepts, with every line either actionable or navigational.	5 / 5
Actionability	Troubleshooting entries give concrete, executable commands (e.g. 'aws ec2 describe-instances --region <region>' and specific env var names), but the primary setup procedure is delegated to the reference file rather than shown inline.	4 / 5
Workflow Clarity	The configure workflow points to the reference procedure without an inline sequence, and the destructive profile-replacement operation lacks explicit inline validation checkpoints beyond a noted confirmation prompt, triggering the destructive-op cap at 3.	3 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	Clear overview with a single well-signaled, verified one-level-deep reference (references/ec2-instance-profile-setup.md) and cleanly organized troubleshooting sections — easy to navigate.	5 / 5
	Total	17 / 20 Passed

Description

87%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

A strong, well-structured description that clearly states what the skill does and when to use it, with concrete actions and natural trigger terms. Minor room to add a couple more action synonyms or service variations to push specificity and trigger-term quality to the top anchor.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Lists several concrete actions — 'creating and attaching IAM roles via instance profiles' and 'eliminating hardcoded credentials' — with strong coverage of the domain, though not quite the breadth of the 5-anchor example.	4 / 5
Completeness	Explicitly answers both 'what' (configures EC2 to securely call AWS services via IAM roles and instance profiles) and 'when' ('Use when an EC2 instance needs permissions to access AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, SQS, or CloudWatch').	5 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	Includes natural terms users would say ('EC2 instance', 'IAM roles', 'instance profiles', 'S3, DynamoDB, SQS, or CloudWatch', 'temporary credentials') with good coverage, but a few natural synonyms are absent.	4 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	Occupies a clear niche (EC2 instance profiles / IAM roles for EC2 with named AWS services) with distinct triggers and minimal risk of firing for unrelated skills.	5 / 5
	Total	18 / 20 Passed

Validation

93%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	15 / 16 Passed

Repository: aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws
Path: skills/specialized-skills/ec2-skills/setting-up-ec2-instance-profiles/SKILL.md
Commit: 8ea26bd

Reviewed: 5 days ago

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