Connecting to AWS

Tablyne reads the AWS profiles you already have on your machine and lets you switch between accounts and regions from a single bar at the top of the window.

How Tablyne finds your profiles

Tablyne reads the standard AWS shared-config files — the same ones the AWS CLI uses:

File	What Tablyne reads
~/.aws/credentials	profile sections like [dev]
~/.aws/config	profile sections like [profile dev], plus per-profile region

Profile names from both files are merged and de-duplicated. Sections that are not profiles — [sso-session …] and [services …] — are skipped. Nothing leaves your machine: credentials stay in your local AWS files and are used to sign requests directly from your computer.

If you don’t have any profiles yet, see Adding an AWS profile. Tablyne does not support AWS SSO / IAM Identity Center sign-in flows — only profiles backed by long-lived access keys (or credentials already materialized into the shared files).

Choosing a profile and region

The connection bar at the top of the window has two dropdowns:

• Profile — every profile parsed from your AWS files.
• Region — the AWS region to talk to.

Pick a profile, then a region, and the table list in the sidebar loads automatically. The same controls appear on the welcome screen when no tables are open.

Supported regions

The region dropdown is a fixed list of five regions:

us-east-1   (N. Virginia)
us-east-2   (Ohio)
us-west-2   (Oregon)
eu-west-1   (Ireland)
sa-east-1   (São Paulo)

This is a deliberate, hardcoded list — other AWS regions are not currently selectable from the UI. If you work primarily in a region that isn’t listed, let us know.

Switching connections

Changing either dropdown re-points every query (table list, data grids, schema) at the new profile/region pair. Because switching connection resets each tab’s staged edits, Tablyne warns you first if any open tab has unsaved staged changes and lets you cancel. Saved data is never affected — the prompt only guards in-memory edits you haven’t written back yet.

Free tier and the cloud gate

Connecting to real AWS cloud requires an active license or trial. The Free tier is local only — see DynamoDB Local. This check runs in the Rust core on every request, so it can’t be bypassed from the UI. If you try to reach AWS without entitlement, Tablyne returns:

Plano Free: o acesso à AWS cloud requer licença ou trial ativo. Conecte ao DynamoDB Local.

See Licensing to activate.

Permissions

Tablyne uses whatever IAM permissions the selected profile has. To browse and edit data you’ll typically want DynamoDB read/write actions (ListTables, DescribeTable, Scan, Query, GetItem, PutItem, DeleteItem, BatchWriteItem) plus, for table management, CreateTable, DeleteTable, UpdateTable, and UpdateTimeToLive. If an action fails, Tablyne surfaces the raw AWS error so you can see exactly which permission is missing.

Troubleshooting

• No profiles in the dropdown — Tablyne didn’t find any profile sections. Add one with Adding an AWS profile, or check that ~/.aws/credentials exists.
• “requires license or trial” — you’re on the Free tier trying to reach the cloud. Connect to DynamoDB Local or activate a license.
• Access denied / security token errors — the profile’s keys are invalid or lack DynamoDB permissions for that region.

To learn the concepts behind profiles and regions, read the connection learn guide.