mcp/aws-documentation repository overview

⁠AWS Documentation MCP Server

Tools to access AWS documentation, search for content, and get recommendations.

What is an MCP Server?⁠

⁠MCP Info

⁠Image Building Info

Attribute	Details
Dockerfile	https://github.com/awslabs/mcp/blob/636aca8e109b5559006044f035bb89c16e9e5410/src/aws-documentation-mcp-server/Dockerfile⁠
Commit	636aca8e109b5559006044f035bb89c16e9e5410
Docker Image built by	Docker Inc.
Docker Scout Health Score
Verify Signature	COSIGN_REPOSITORY=mcp/signatures cosign verify mcp/aws-documentation --key https://raw.githubusercontent.com/docker/keyring/refs/heads/main/public/mcp/latest.pub
Licence	Apache License 2.0

⁠Available Tools (4)

⁠Tools Details

⁠Tool: read_documentation

Fetch and convert an AWS documentation page to markdown format.

⁠Usage

This tool retrieves the content of an AWS documentation page and converts it to markdown format. For long documents, you can make multiple calls with different start_index values to retrieve the entire content in chunks.

⁠URL Requirements

• Must be from the docs.aws.amazon.com domain
• Must end with .html

⁠Example URLs

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/bucketnamingrules.html⁠
• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/lambda-invocation.html⁠

⁠Output Format

The output is formatted as markdown text with:

• Preserved headings and structure
• Code blocks for examples
• Lists and tables converted to markdown format

⁠Handling Long Documents

If the response indicates the document was truncated, you have several options:

1. Continue Reading: Make another call with start_index set to the end of the previous response
2. Stop Early: For very long documents (>30,000 characters), if you've already found the specific information needed, you can stop reading Parameters|Type|Description -|-|- url|string|URL of the AWS documentation page to read max_length|integer optional|Maximum number of characters to return. start_index|integer optional|On return output starting at this character index, useful if a previous fetch was truncated and more content is required.

⁠Tool: read_sections

Extract specific sections from AWS documentation pages by title.

Retrieves a page, converts to markdown, and returns only matching sections. Section matching is case-insensitive and handles whitespace differences.

⁠URL Requirements

• Must end with .html

⁠Read Sections Tips

• Use exact section titles from search results 'sections' field when available
• Section matching is case-insensitive and handles whitespace differences
• Include multiple related sections in one call for comprehensive coverage

⁠Example Usage

# If query is about S3 bucket naming rules:
# Available sections: ['General purpose buckets naming rules', 'Example general purpose bucket names', 'Best practices', 'Creating a bucket that uses a GUID in the bucket name']
# Read these specific sections:
read_sections(
    url='https://docs.aws.amazon.com/s3/latest/userguide/bucketnamingrules.html',
    section_titles=['General purpose buckets naming rules', 'Best practices'],
)

# If query is about Python Lambda function examples:
# Available sections: ['Example Python Lambda function code', 'Handler naming conventions', 'Using the Lambda event object', 'Accessing and using the Lambda context object'. 'Valid handler signatures for Python handlers', 'Returning a value', 'Using the AWS SDK for Python (Boto3) in your handler', 'Accessing environment variables, 'Code best practices for Python Lambda functions']
# Read these specific sections:
read_sections(
    url='https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/python-handler.html',
    section_titles=[
        'Example Python Lambda function code',
        'Code best practices for Python Lambda functions',
    ],
)

⁠Tool: recommend

Get content recommendations for an AWS documentation page.

⁠Usage

This tool provides recommendations for related AWS documentation pages based on a given URL. Use it to discover additional relevant content that might not appear in search results.

⁠Recommendation Types

The recommendations include four categories:

1. Highly Rated: Popular pages within the same AWS service
2. New: Recently added pages within the same AWS service - useful for finding newly released features
3. Similar: Pages covering similar topics to the current page
4. Journey: Pages commonly viewed next by other users

⁠When to Use

• After reading a documentation page to find related content
• When exploring a new AWS service to discover important pages
• To find alternative explanations of complex concepts
• To discover the most popular pages for a service
• To find newly released information by using a service's welcome page URL and checking the New recommendations

⁠Finding New Features

To find newly released information about a service:

1. Find any page belong to that service, typically you can try the welcome page
2. Call this tool with that URL
3. Look specifically at the New recommendation type in the results

⁠Result Interpretation

Each recommendation includes:

• url: The documentation page URL
• title: The page title
• context: A brief description (if available) Parameters|Type|Description -|-|- url|string|URL of the AWS documentation page to get recommendations for

⁠Tool: search_documentation

Search AWS documentation using the official AWS Documentation Search API.

⁠Usage

This tool searches across all AWS documentation for pages matching your search phrase. Use it to find relevant documentation when you don't have a specific URL.

⁠Search Tips

• Use specific technical terms rather than general phrases
• Include service names to narrow results (e.g., "S3 bucket versioning" instead of just "versioning")
• Use quotes for exact phrase matching (e.g., "AWS Lambda function URLs")
• Include abbreviations and alternative terms to improve results
• Use guide_type and product_type filters found from a SearchResponse's "facets" property:
  • Filter only for broad search queries with patterns:
    • "What is [service]?" -> product_types: ["Amazon Simple Storage Service"]
    • "How to use <service 1> with <service 2>?" -> product_types: [<service 1>, <service 2>]
    • "[service] getting started" -> product_types: [] + guide_types: ["User Guide, "Developer Guide"]
    • "API reference for [service]" -> product_types: [] + guide_types: ["API Reference"]

⁠Result Interpretation

Each SearchResponse includes:

• search_results: List of documentation pages, each with:
  • rank_order: The relevance ranking (lower is more relevant)
  • url: The documentation page URL
  • title: The page title
  • context: A brief excerpt or summary (if available)
  • recommended_sections: A subset of section titles ranked as most relevant to the query, in rank order (when available) - Pass these directly to read_sections for targeted content extraction
  • sections: All available section titles for this page (when available) - individual titles can be used with the read_sections tool for targeted content extraction
  • metadata: Optional per-result context (when available). May include:
    • additional_urls: Other doc URLs related to the same result {url, section_title, section_anchor} - pass section_title to read_sections to fetch content; use url#section_anchor when citing
• facets: Available filters (product_types, guide_types) for refining searches
• query_id: Unique identifier for this search session
• metadata: Optional response-level context (when available). May include:
  • discovered_services: AWS services inferred from the query that may be relevant beyond the top results
  • related_tasks: Related operations or workflows the user may want to follow up on, each with its own doc URLs
  • relationships: Named connections between information in the search results, useful for understanding how the returned topics relate to each other Parameters|Type|Description -|-|- search_phrase|string|Search phrase to use guide_types|string optional|Filter results by guide type (e.g., ["User Guide", "API Reference", "Developer Guide"]) limit|integer optional|Maximum number of results to return product_types|string optional|Filter results by AWS product/service (e.g., ["Amazon Simple Storage Service"]) search_intent|string optional|For the search_phrase parameter, describe the search intent of the user. CRITICAL: Do not include any PII or customer data, describe only the AWS-related intent for search.

⁠Use this MCP Server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aws-documentation": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "mcp/aws-documentation"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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