If your stack involves AWS — and in Latin America, there’s a strong chance it does — Amazon Q Developer gives you an AI assistant that actually understands the services you’re working with. This guide walks you through setting it up and using it for real AWS development tasks, not just autocomplete.
Installation
Amazon Q Developer works in multiple environments:
VS Code:
- Open the Extensions marketplace
- Search “Amazon Q”
- Install the official Amazon Q extension
- Click the Q icon in the sidebar to sign in
JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm):
- Settings → Plugins → Marketplace
- Search “Amazon Q”
- Install and restart
Authentication options:
- AWS Builder ID — free, no AWS account required. Creates a personal developer profile. Best for getting started.
- IAM Identity Center — for enterprise/team use. Connects to your organization’s AWS account with SSO.
Sign in with your Builder ID for the free tier. You get code suggestions, chat, and security scanning at no cost.
The Free Tier: What You Actually Get
Amazon Q Developer’s free tier is genuinely useful:
- Code suggestions — inline completions across 15+ languages
- Chat — conversational AI in your IDE with AWS knowledge
- Security scanning — 50 scans per month
- Code transformation — limited use for Java upgrades
This is enough for individual developers and small teams to evaluate and use daily.
AWS-Specific Code Generation
Where Q Developer separates from general-purpose tools is AWS service knowledge. Try these:
Lambda functions:
Create a Lambda function in Python that:
- Triggers on S3 PUT events in the 'uploads' bucket
- Validates the file is an image (jpg, png, webp)
- Resizes it to 800px wide using Pillow
- Saves the thumbnail to the 'thumbnails' bucket
- Logs the operation to CloudWatch
Include the SAM template for deployment.
Q Developer generates not just the Lambda code but also the IAM permissions, SAM/CloudFormation template, and the event source mapping.
IAM Policies:
Create a least-privilege IAM policy for a service that needs to:
- Read from DynamoDB table 'users'
- Write to S3 bucket 'user-uploads' (prefix: uploads/*)
- Publish to SNS topic 'notifications'
- Read secrets from Secrets Manager (only 'prod/db-connection')
This is where Q Developer excels — IAM policies are notoriously tricky to get right, and Q Developer understands the exact ARN formats, action names, and condition keys.
Infrastructure as Code:
Write a CDK construct in TypeScript for:
- An API Gateway REST API with Lambda integration
- DynamoDB table with on-demand capacity
- Cognito user pool for authentication
- S3 bucket for file uploads with CORS configured
Include all the IAM roles and permissions.
Security Scanning in Practice
Security scanning is one of Q Developer’s standout features. Run it on your project:
- Open the Command Palette (
Ctrl+Shift+P) - Search “Amazon Q: Run Security Scan”
- Select the scope (current file or full project)
It checks for:
- Hardcoded credentials and secrets
- SQL injection vulnerabilities
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) risks
- Insecure cryptographic practices
- Dependency vulnerabilities
- AWS-specific misconfigurations (overly permissive IAM, public S3 buckets)
Findings appear in the Problems panel with severity levels and suggested fixes. For regulated industries common in LatAm (banking, healthcare, fintech), running this regularly is valuable.
Code Transformation: Java Upgrades
If your team maintains Java applications (extremely common in Latin American enterprise), the code transformation feature is potentially a game-changer:
- Open a Java 8 or Java 11 project
- Command Palette → “Amazon Q: Transform”
- Select target version (e.g., Java 17)
- Q Developer analyzes your entire project
It handles:
- Language syntax updates
- Deprecated API replacements
- Dependency version upgrades
- Framework migrations (Spring Boot 2 → 3)
- Test updates
Review the changes carefully — it’s not perfect for every edge case — but it eliminates the bulk of manual migration work.
Using Chat Effectively for AWS
Q Developer Chat understands AWS services at a deep level. Effective patterns:
Troubleshooting:
My Lambda function is timing out after 15 seconds when connecting
to an RDS instance in a VPC. The Lambda has a VPC configuration
with the same subnets and security groups. What's likely wrong?
Q Developer knows common VPC/Lambda issues (NAT gateway, security group rules, DNS resolution) and can diagnose the specific problem.
Architecture questions:
I need to process 10,000 CSV files daily, each ~50MB.
The processing takes about 30 seconds per file.
Compare: Lambda with SQS vs. Step Functions with parallel Map
vs. Batch compute. Which fits best for cost and reliability?
It understands service limits, pricing models, and architectural trade-offs specific to AWS.
Cost optimization:
Review this CloudFormation template and suggest cost optimizations
for a startup with moderate traffic (~5000 DAU).
CLI Integration
Install Q Developer for the command line:
# On Mac
brew install amazon-q
In your terminal, Q Developer provides:
- Command completion for AWS CLI
- Natural language to AWS CLI command translation
- Explanation of complex AWS CLI commands
Type q chat in your terminal to start a conversation about your AWS infrastructure.
Combining Q Developer with Other Tools
Q Developer doesn’t have to be your only AI tool. A practical combination:
- Q Developer for all AWS-specific work (Lambda, IAM, CDK, CloudFormation, troubleshooting)
- Cursor or Copilot for general application code (React, business logic, algorithms)
- Claude Code for complex multi-file refactoring and agentic tasks
Each tool has its strengths. Q Developer’s AWS knowledge is genuinely deeper than what general-purpose tools provide.
What AWS workflows are you using Q Developer for? Share your experience. 