Default region in ~/.aws/config is ignored

[srgoni]

Describe the bug

In an AWS CLI configuration file with many profiles, it's useful to set a default region for all accounts, but it looks like the region parameter in the [default] section is ignored.

Regression Issue

• Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

Expected Behavior

After signing in, AWS CLI commands succeed.

Current Behavior

AWS CLI displays:

You must specify a region. You can also configure your region by running "aws configure".

When running aws configure list, it's clearly shown that the default region is ignored:

      Name                    Value             Type    Location
      ----                    -----             ----    --------
    region                <not set>             None    None

Reproduction Steps

1. Create a AWS CLI config file like this:

[default]
region = us-west-1

[sso-session test]
sso_start_url = https://awssso.example.com
sso_region = us-west-1
sso_registration_scopes = sso:account:access

[profile account1]
sso_session = test
sso_account_id = 1234
sso_role_name = ReadOnlyAccess

2. Set the profile and log into account1:

export AWS_PROFILE=account1
aws sso login

3. Try to access some resources:

aws ec2 describe-instances

4. List the current settings:

aws configure list

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

The error also happens when setting the profile via the --profile parameter (as opposed to the environment variable AWS_PROFILE).

CLI version used

aws-cli/2.23.6 Python/3.13.3 Linux/6.12.25-amd64 source/x86_64.debian.13

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

Debian Linux 13

[RyanFitzSimmonsAK]

Hi @srgoni, thanks for reaching out. This is intended and documented behavior. From https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdkref/latest/guide/file-format.html,

The [default] profile contains the values that are used by an SDK or tool operation if a specific named profile is not specified. You can also create separate profiles that you can explicitly reference by name. Each profile can use different settings and values as needed by your application and scenario.

[default] is simply an unnamed profile. This profile is named default because it is the default profile used by the SDK if the user does not specify a profile. It does not provide inherited default values to other profiles. If you set something in the [default] profile and you don't set it in a named profile, then the value isn't set when you use the named profile.

If you want to set the region for account1, then you need to include region = us-west-1 under that section. Alternatively, if you want to set the region for all profiles, you can use the AWS_REGION environment variable. Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

[srgoni]

That seems a bit counter-intuitive, it think it would be useful to have global defaults in the config file.
But it's all right. I must have missed this part, thank you for pointing it out!

[github-actions]

This issue is now closed. Comments on closed issues are hard for our team to see.
If you need more assistance, please open a new issue that references this one.