# aws/amazon-ecs-agent

Amazon Elastic Container Service Agent

Repository: https://github.com/aws/amazon-ecs-agent
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/amazon-ecs-agent
Homepage: http://aws.amazon.com/ecs/
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: go, amazon-ecs-agent, amazon-ec2, docker-container, amazon-linux-ami
Last push: 2026-08-26T19:49:10+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 98, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4290, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 16, "gap_med": 18, "n_releases_24m": 38}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2178, forks 658 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:22.976399+00:00)

## What it is
The Amazon ECS Container Agent manages containers on EC2 instances on behalf of Amazon Elastic Container Service, handling task lifecycle, IAM roles, and networking. It ships with ecs-init, a systemd service that keeps the agent running, packaged as deb/rpm or a Docker image.

## Use cases
- run ECS tasks on my own EC2 instances
- manage docker containers on behalf of Amazon ECS
- enable IAM roles for ECS tasks on an instance
- install the ECS agent on a non-Amazon Linux AMI
- run the ECS agent in a Docker container
- support awsvpc networking mode with CNI plugins

## When to choose
- you operate EC2 instances registered to Amazon ECS clusters
- you need the official, AWS-maintained agent for ECS task management
- you want ecs-init systemd integration for agent reliability

## When to avoid
- you are not using Amazon ECS or AWS
- you need a general-purpose container orchestrator like Kubernetes
- you run containers on non-Linux platforms

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: container-orchestration, deployment, cloud, monitoring
- domain: cloud-computing, infrastructure-as-code
- platform: go, self-hosted
- tags: aws, ecs, container-agent, ecs-init, systemd, docker, containers, devops, linux

## Member repositories
- aws/amazon-ecs-agent (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:22.976399+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:48:48.199478+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/aws/amazon-ecs-agent (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:22.976399+00:00, sha 603eb496fb2e)
  - homepage: http://aws.amazon.com/ecs/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.298626+00:00, sha 1e22dc736231)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started?nc2=h_dsc_aa_gs (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.310335+00:00, sha f35fd0664950)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure?nc2=h_dsc_aa_gi (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.312077+00:00, sha 79a446e5fbd1)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/products/developer-tools/agent-toolkit-for-aws?nc2=h_dsc_ex_s5 (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.308048+00:00, sha 3cc21b596f92)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/pricing?nc2=h_pr_hub (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.313870+00:00, sha e2abd01d7981)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/savingsplans?nc2=h_pr_sp (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.315691+00:00, sha 9ff3c7ad93e0)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing?nc2=h_pr_s3 (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.317397+00:00, sha 97bbf99c3793)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock/pricing?nc2=h_pr_br (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.320615+00:00, sha 4ccc538a3696)
  - site_page: https://aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing?nc2=h_pr_rds (fetched 2026-08-29T10:28:52.322514+00:00, sha 538280f30c8a)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.