Flag `--profile` is ignored

[zileangrado]

I've set up a profile in ~/.aws/config that looks like this:

[profile localstack]
region=eu-west-1
output=json
endpoint_url=http://localhost:4566

And in ~/.aws/credentials I have:

[localstack]
aws_access_key_id=test
aws_secret_access_key=test
aws_default_region=eu-west-1

When I run cdklocal with --profile localstack (which is supported by cdk), the profile flag seems to be ignored as the resources are deployed in the US region.

This can be worked around by exporting the following env variables:

export AWS_REGION=eu-west-1
export AWS_ENVAR_ALLOWLIST=AWS_REGION

However, it would be better to support --profile to be consistent with cdk and be able to use the same flags regardless of the target (and avoid polluting the env with more variables depending on the use case).

[dytyniuk]

The issue is not with cdklocal, but with cdk or, rather, aws-sdk-js-v3. I've spent hours trying to pinpoint what's the root cause before I found this issue - aws/aws-sdk-js-v3#5701.

Here, given the following config:

# ~/.aws/config
[profile localstack]
cli_pager =
region = us-east-1
endpoint_url = http://127.0.0.1:4566

# ~/.aws/credentials
[localstack]
aws_access_key_id = test
aws_secret_access_key = test

AWS CLI v2 behaviour is expected:

$ aws s3api create-bucket --bucket my-bucket --profile localstack
{
    "Location": "/my-bucket"
}

$ aws s3 ls --profile localstack
2025-12-25 18:42:59 my-bucket

$ AWS_PROFILE=localstack aws s3 ls
2025-12-25 18:42:59 my-bucket

Now, vanilla AWS CDK CLI with --profile option:

$ cdk bootstrap --profile localstack
 ⏳  Bootstrapping environment aws://000000000000/us-east-1...
 ❌  Environment aws://000000000000/us-east-1 failed bootstrapping: InvalidClientTokenId: The security token included in the request is invalid.

AWS CDK CLI with AWS_PROFILE works, though:

$ AWS_PROFILE=localstack cdk bootstrap
 ⏳  Bootstrapping environment aws://000000000000/us-east-1...
Trusted accounts for deployment: (none)
Trusted accounts for lookup: (none)
Using default execution policy of 'arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AdministratorAccess'. Pass '--cloudformation-execution-policies' to customize.
CDKToolkit: creating CloudFormation changeset...
 ✅  Environment aws://000000000000/us-east-1 bootstrapped.