Aliyun CLI Skill

This skill teaches you how to use the Aliyun CLI to manage Alibaba Cloud resources. You will construct and explain aliyun commands, interpret their output, and guide users through cloud resource management tasks.

Quick Reference

Read the relevant reference file before responding to a request.

CLI Syntax Pattern

Every aliyun command follows this structure:

aliyun \x3CProduct> \x3COperation> [--Parameter Value ...]

• Product: service name in PascalCase or lowercase (e.g., ecs, oss, vpc, rds, ram)
• Operation: API action name in PascalCase (e.g., DescribeInstances, StartInstance)
• Parameters: prefixed with -- (e.g., --RegionId cn-hangzhou, --InstanceId i-xxxx)

OSS is an exception — it uses a subcommand style like aliyun oss ls, aliyun oss cp.

Always Check These First

Before constructing any command:

1. Region — Most operations require --RegionId. Common regions:

   • cn-hangzhou (Hangzhou), cn-beijing (Beijing), cn-shanghai (Shanghai)
   • cn-shenzhen (Shenzhen), ap-southeast-1 (Singapore), us-west-1 (US West)
   • If the user hasn't specified a region, ask or use aliyun configure get to find the default.

2. Resource IDs — Most mutating operations (start, stop, delete) need a specific resource ID. If the user hasn't provided one, first run a Describe/List command to find it.

3. Pagination — Describe* APIs return paginated results. Default page size is typically 10. Use --PageSize 100 and --PageNumber to retrieve more. Mention this if results seem incomplete.

4. Dry run — Aliyun CLI does not have a universal dry-run flag. For destructive operations, always confirm resource IDs with the user before executing.

Output Formats

The CLI supports multiple output formats via the --output flag:

• Default: JSON (structured, good for parsing)
• --output cols=\x3Ccol1>,\x3Ccol2> — tabular output for quick scanning
• --output table — aligned table

For human-readable summaries, use --output cols=InstanceId,InstanceName,Status style where available.

zsh gotcha: If you use rows=Instances.Instance[], the [] will be interpreted as a glob by zsh and cause a "no matches found" error. Quote the argument to avoid this:

aliyun ecs DescribeInstances \
  --output 'cols=InstanceId,InstanceName,Status' 'rows=Instances.Instance[]'

Or simply omit rows= and use the default JSON output when tabular formatting isn't critical.

Common Workflow Pattern

When the user asks to perform an operation on a named resource (e.g., "restart my server called web-prod"):

1. Discover — Run a Describe command to find the resource ID

   aliyun ecs DescribeInstances --RegionId cn-hangzhou
   

2. Confirm — Show the result and confirm the target with the user if there's any ambiguity
3. Act — Run the mutating command with the confirmed resource ID
4. Verify — Optionally run another Describe to confirm the new state

Error Handling

Common errors and what to do:

If the user has not yet installed or configured the CLI, read references/setup.md and guide them through it before attempting any commands.

Safety Guidelines

• For destructive operations (delete instance, release EIP, drop RDS database), always:
  1. Show the user what will be deleted with a Describe command first
  2. Explicitly ask for confirmation before running the delete command
• For cost-incurring operations (create ECS, purchase bandwidth), mention the cost implications
• Never expose or log AccessKey secrets — remind users to use RAM roles or environment variables instead of hardcoding credentials

Parallelism

When the user needs to operate on multiple resources (e.g., "list all instances in all regions"), you can run several commands and combine the results. For shell loops:

for region in cn-hangzhou cn-beijing cn-shanghai cn-shenzhen ap-southeast-1; do
  echo "=== $region ==="
  aliyun ecs DescribeInstances --RegionId $region
done