eks-ami-finder

A command-line tool to find Amazon EKS optimized AMI IDs across different versions and regions.

📋 Overview

Users often need to pin their AMI to a specific version of Amazon EKS Optimized AMI for security or compliance reasons. However, AWS documentation only provides methods to retrieve the latest AMI versions:

• Retrieve recommended Amazon Linux AMI IDs
• Retrieve recommended Microsoft Windows AMI IDs
• Retrieve recommended Bottlerocket AMI IDs

eks-ami-finder fills this gap by providing access to historical AMI information for Amazon Linux, Windows, and Bottlerocket-based EKS optimized AMIs.

🔢 Prerequisites

• An IAM Role/User with ec2:DescribeImages permission.

🚀 Quick start

Basic Usage

eks-ami-finder help

Find the latest AMIs

eks-ami-finder

Find AMIs by Release Date

# Find all AMIs released in September 2025 (prefix match), with no region specify
eks-ami-finder --release-date 202509

# Find AMIs released on a specific date
eks-ami-finder --release-date 20250920 --region us-east-1

Find AMIs by Kubernetes Version

# Find AMIs for Kubernetes 1.34
eks-ami-finder --kubernetes-version 1.34 --region us-east-1

# Combine Kubernetes version with specific release date
eks-ami-finder --kubernetes-version 1.34 --release-date 20250920 --region us-east-1

Filter by AMI Type

# Find Amazon Linux 2023 AMIs
eks-ami-finder --ami-type AL2023_x86_64_STANDARD --region us-east-1

# Find Windows AMIs
eks-ami-finder --ami-type WINDOWS_CORE_2022_x86_64 --region us-east-1

# Find Bottlerocket AMIs
eks-ami-finder --ami-type BOTTLEROCKET_x86_64 --region us-east-1

Example Output

eks-ami-finder --kubernetes-version 1.34 --release-date 20250920 --region us-east-1

+-----------+-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+--------------+
| Region    | AMI ID                | Name                                                  | Description                                                                                                   | DeprecationTime          | Architecture |
+-----------+-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+--------------+
| us-east-1 | ami-0093e29064b926113 | amazon-eks-node-al2023-x86_64-standard-1.34-v20250920 | EKS-optimized Kubernetes node based on Amazon Linux 2023, (k8s: 1.34.1, containerd: 2.1.4-1.eks.amzn2023.0.1) | 2027-09-24T00:36:26.000Z | x86_64       |
+-----------+-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+--------------+

Key Capabilities

• Historical AMI Search: Find specific versions of EKS-optimized AMIs, not just the latest.
• Multi-OS Support: Search Amazon Linux, Windows, and Bottlerocket AMIs.
• Flexible Filtering: Filter by Kubernetes version, release date, AMI type, region, etc.

❓ FAQ

Q: How does eks-ami-finder look up AMI IDs?

eks-ami-finder first identifies the Owner IDs of the AMIs (source), then filters AMI IDs released by these Owner IDs (source) using pattern matching. It's that simple!

Q: Where can I find the definition for the --ami-type flag value?

See the amiType definition in the AWS documentation.

Q: Does an AMI description guarantee it's an official build?

Not necessarily. AMI descriptions like EKS-optimized Kubernetes node based on Amazon Linux 2023, (k8s: 1.34.1, containerd: 2.1.4-1.eks.amzn2023.0.1) can be defined by anyone. You still need to verify that it comes from the Amazon EKS team by checking the Owner ID.

👷 Install

For macOS/Linux users (Recommended)

Brand new install

brew tap guessi/tap && brew update && brew install eks-ami-finder

To upgrade version

brew update && brew upgrade eks-ami-finder

Manually setup (Linux, Windows, macOS)

Click to expand!

For Linux users

curl -fsSL https://github.com/guessi/eks-ami-finder/releases/latest/download/eks-ami-finder-Linux-$(uname -m).tar.gz -o - | tar zxvf -
mv -vf ./eks-ami-finder /usr/local/bin/eks-ami-finder

For macOS users

curl -fsSL https://github.com/guessi/eks-ami-finder/releases/latest/download/eks-ami-finder-Darwin-$(uname -m).tar.gz -o - | tar zxvf -
mv -vf ./eks-ami-finder /usr/local/bin/eks-ami-finder

For Windows users

$SRC = 'https://github.com/guessi/eks-ami-finder/releases/latest/download/eks-ami-finder-Windows-x86_64.tar.gz'
$DST = 'C:\Temp\eks-ami-finder-Windows-x86_64.tar.gz'
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $SRC -OutFile $DST

⚖️ License

Apache-2.0