Amazon Q

Boost Productivity with Amazon Q for Development

1. History

Key milestones in the evolution of Amazon Q

gantt
    title Amazon Q Development Timeline
    dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
    axisFormat %b %Y

    section .
    Amazon Q Announced                 :q_announce, 2023-11-28, 5d
    Developer GA (CLI & IDE Agent)     :q_ga, 2024-04-30, 5d
    GitHub Integration Preview         :q_github, 2025-05-05, 5d

2. Ways to Use

• CLI – Terminal-based interaction (Q CLI)
• IDE Extension – VS Code / JetBrains with Q Developer tools
• AWS Console – Context-aware help directly in the UI
• Q Business – Chat interface for internal company data (web-based)

3. Installation

Quick Setup

Install Amazon Q CLI for your OS or environment:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qdeveloper-ug/command-line-installing.html

Dev Container Support

To use Amazon Q CLI inside a Dev Container, add this to your devcontainer.json:

{
  "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:ubuntu",
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/jajera/features/amazon-q-cli:1": {}
  }
}

This installs Amazon Q CLI using a custom Dev Container Feature you can reuse across projects.

4. How to Use Amazon Q CLI

Try These Commands

# Ask a question
q ask "How do I enable versioning on an S3 bucket?"

# Explain an error
q explain "AccessDeniedException from Lambda"

# Generate a script
q generate "Bash script to create an EC2 instance with CLI"

# Start an interactive chat session
q chat

Pro Tip

Use q chat for a persistent conversational session — like talking to a CLI-native dev assistant.

5. Good and Bad Habits

Good Habits

• Be specific with your requests
• Iterate for accuracy
• Test in dev environment first
• Use Q as a collaborator, not a crutch

Bad Habits

• Copy code blindly
• Ask vague questions
• Ignore official documentation
• Let Q replace your own reasoning

6. Watchouts

Q can accelerate your work — but it should never replace your understanding.

Be aware of꞉

• Learn how to prompt effectively → promptingguide.ai
• Always validate suggestions before using them
• Some outputs may be outdated (based on training data)
• LLMs can hallucinate or invent APIs
• Trust, but always verify — especially before deploying

7. Example and Demo

Here's a real-world output generated by Amazon Q CLI:

Kiwi Memory Game — a JavaScript-based browser game scaffolded entirely via q chat.

github.com/jajera/q-kiwi-memory-game

Kiwi Maze Game — a JavaScript-based browser game scaffolded entirely via q chat.

github.com/jajera/q-kiwi-maze-game

Thank You﹗

Questions?

References

• Amazon Q Announced (Nov 28, 2023)
• Amazon Q Developer GA — IDE & CLI (Apr 30, 2024)
• GitHub Integration Preview (May 5, 2025)