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Security

IAM instance profile

Quick answer

An IAM instance profile attaches an AWS role to an EC2 instance so software on it can obtain temporary credentials without stored keys.

An IAM instance profile attaches an AWS role to an EC2 instance so software on it can obtain temporary credentials without stored keys.

Why it matters

For BYOC runners it is how a job authenticates to S3 or ECR without a long-lived access key sitting in a secret. Scope it narrowly — every job on that instance inherits it.

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