Browse AWS in the terminal

Every AWS resource as a table you can drive with the keyboard

The AWS CLI makes you remember flag combinations. The console makes you click through tabs. orbit renders resources as dense, sortable tables and gives you vim keys, fuzzy filtering and a command mode, so finding the instance you want is a matter of typing a few characters rather than assembling a --query string.

Install orbit brew install doughlass/homebrew-tap/orbit

Start here

To look around without touching a real account, run orbit --demo. It starts instantly on synthetic data and never contacts AWS, which makes it the fastest way to learn the keys.

orbit                                    # default profile and region
orbit --profile prod                     # a specific profile
orbit --region eu-west-1                 # a specific region
orbit --write                            # allow writes; read-only is the default
orbit --demo                             # synthetic data, no AWS connection
orbit --demo all                         # EC2 + Route53 + CloudFront

Once you are in a resource list, the command mode is how you move around. Press : and a list of every command appears; typing narrows it, and Tab accepts the highlighted match, so : then ec then Tab lands you on EC2 instances.

:ec2-instances           # EC2 instances
:s3-buckets              # S3 buckets
:lambda-functions        # Lambda functions
:profiles                # switch AWS profile
:regions                 # switch AWS region

Key bindings

The navigation vocabulary is vim's, because it is the one that works for this shape of work. Press ? at any point for the in-app help screen, which also lists the resource-specific actions available in your current view.

Key	Action
`j` `k` `↑` `↓`	Navigate items
`gg` / `Home`	Jump to top
`G` / `End`	Jump to bottom
`PgUp` `PgDn` `Ctrl+b` `Ctrl+f`	Page up and down
`]` `[`	Next and previous page
`Enter`	Describe resource, or drill into a sub-resource
`d`	Describe selected resource
`:`	Command mode: `:profiles`, `:regions`, or a resource name
`/`	Filter: fuzzy match, or AWS tag filters where supported
`←` `→` then `Tab`	Move the sort cursor and sort; `Shift+Tab` clears the sort
`⇧←` `⇧→` or `,` `.`	Scroll the table horizontally
`v`	Column visibility picker
`R`	Refresh
`0`–`5`	Quick region switch
`?`	Help, including resource-specific actions
`Esc` `Backspace`	Go back
`Ctrl+c`	Quit

Resource-specific actions appear in the help screen. For example c connects to an EC2 instance over SSM, i lists the images in a selected ECR repository, and in Secrets Manager s shows a secret value for ten seconds before hiding itself. The mutating ones require --write — see read-only by default.

What you can browse

orbit covers 160+ resource views across 60+ AWS services, grouped by category. Every resource type is a JSON definition rather than hardcoded Rust, so support for a new resource does not require changes to the binary's source.

Every resource type, page by page

Each resource view has its own page: the columns it shows, its actions with their AWS API calls, and the IAM permissions the read path needs.

CloudFront — CloudFront Distributions

CLOUDWATCHLOGS — CloudWatch Log Groups

DynamoDB — DynamoDB Tables

EC2 — EC2 Instances, EBS Volumes, EBS Snapshots, AMIs, VPCs, VPC Endpoints, VPC Peering

ECS — ECS Clusters, ECS Task Definitions

EKS — EKS Clusters

ELBv2 — Load Balancers

IAM — IAM Users, IAM Roles

Lambda — Lambda Functions

MONITORING — CloudWatch Alarms

RDS — RDS Instances, Aurora Clusters

Route 53 — Route53 Hosted Zones

S3 — S3 Buckets

Secrets Manager — Secrets Manager Secrets

SNS — SNS Topics

SQS — SQS Queues

Compute

EC2 (instances, VPCs, subnets, security groups, network ACLs, route tables, internet and NAT gateways, elastic IPs, network interfaces, VPC endpoints, VPC peering, transit gateways, AMIs, EBS volumes and snapshots, launch templates, key pairs, placement groups, dedicated hosts), Lambda, ECS, EKS, Auto Scaling, Step Functions.

Storage

S3 (buckets, objects, bucket policies, lifecycle rules, replication rules), EFS, FSx, Backup.

Database

RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, Redshift, DocumentDB, Neptune, Athena, EMR, Glue, MSK.

Networking

Route 53 (hosted zones and records), Route 53 Resolver, CloudFront, ELB, API Gateway, AppSync, VPC Lattice, App Mesh, Cloud Map.

Security

IAM (users, groups, roles, policies, access keys, instance profiles, SAML and OIDC providers), Secrets Manager, KMS, ACM, Cognito, WAF, Shield, GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie, Security Hub.

Management & messaging

CloudFormation, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, SSM, Config, Service Quotas, Trusted Advisor, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Amazon MQ, Kinesis, Data Firehose.

Shell completions

orbit ships completions for bash, zsh and fish, so the : resource names and CLI flags autocomplete like any other command.

eval "$(orbit completion bash)"      # add to ~/.bashrc
eval "$(orbit completion zsh)"       # add to ~/.zshrc
orbit completion fish | source       # add to config.fish

Browsing questions

How do I find a specific resource quickly?

Press / to filter the current list with client-side fuzzy matching, which matches as you type without calling AWS again. Where a service supports it, filters can also run server-side against AWS tags. Narrowing to one row and pressing Enter describes it.

How do I switch between AWS profiles and regions?

Use the command mode: :profiles to switch AWS profile and :regions to switch region, both without restarting orbit. The number keys 0 to 5 jump between regions directly, and --profile and --region set the starting context on launch.

What is the difference between orbit and the AWS CLI?

The AWS CLI is for scripting and one-off commands, and it is excellent at that. orbit is for exploring: it renders resources as dense tables you drive with single keystrokes, keeps your profile and region context in the header, and supports fuzzy filtering and sorting without you having to remember flags. Use the CLI to automate, orbit to see what you have.

Can I try orbit without an AWS account?

Yes. Run orbit --demo to start instantly with synthetic data and no AWS connection at all. orbit --demo all shows EC2, Route53 and CloudFront, and you can name specific resources such as orbit --demo ec2-instances,cloudfront-distributions.

Does orbit work with AWS SSO and assumed roles?

Yes. orbit uses the standard AWS credential chain, so SSO, role assumption, console login and IMDSv2 all work without extra configuration. If an Identity Center token has expired, orbit prompts you to authenticate, and it reuses a cached token if you already ran aws sso login.