AWS Finally Built Its Own AWS Emulator

AWS has now developed its own emulator for AWS APIs called AWS Emulator. This local emulator enables testing software without interacting with AWS, on developers' machines or continuous integration servers. There is no cost associated with the emulator, only for AWS resources deployed. Simply set environment variables to point the AWS CLI or SDK to its endpoint after starting the emulator.

AWS Emulator can be installed via the aws-emulator skill if using the AWS CLI version 2.35.0 or later. For embedded mode, the emulator is compiled into the test binary. The emulator serves HTTPS requests on 127.0.0.1:9297 and does not collect or share any data that identifies or associates with users or their data. To turn off telemetry, use the --telemetry option or set EMULATOR_TELEMETRY to off in the emulator settings file.

If building a tool that includes the emulator, inform users about telemetry and provide an option to disable it. Report any issues or fidelity gaps in GitHub Issues, naming the service, operation, SDK version, request, and response discrepancies.