AWS Certificate Manager: Get certificate from the CLI

Part 268 of AWS from Zero. This is lesson 3 in the AWS Certificate Manager track.

What we are learning

Use get-certificate to read or inventory certificate in AWS Certificate Manager. This lesson identifies the required input shape, saves the raw response, and keeps inspection separate from execution.

The AWS CLI operation is aws acm get-certificate. Required operation inputs: --certificate-arn (string). The modeled top-level response contains Certificate, CertificateChain.

Before you run it

aws sts get-caller-identity
REGION="${AWS_REGION:-ap-south-1}"
CERTIFICATE_ARN="replace-with-certificate-arn"
aws acm get-certificate help

Use a sandbox account or an approved learning environment. Read the operation help before supplying identifiers, ARNs, network ranges, policy documents, or customer data.

Cost note: Public ACM certificates are generally free with integrated services; private CA and exported certificate use can incur charges.

The command

aws acm get-certificate \
  --certificate-arn "$CERTIFICATE_ARN" \
  --region "$REGION" \
  --output json > part-268-response.json

The response is saved to part-268-response.json so inspection is separate from execution. The explicit variables above keep required identifiers visible before the API call.

Inspect the result

node -e "const r=require('./part-268-response.json'); console.log(Object.keys(r))"
node -e "const r=require('./part-268-response.json'); console.log(JSON.stringify(r, null, 2))"

Compare the returned identifiers and status fields with the account, Region, and resource you intended to target. For asynchronous operations, continue with the service's matching get, list, or describe command until it reaches a terminal state.

One tiny variation

node -e "const r=require('./part-268-response.json'); console.log(JSON.stringify(r["Certificate"], null, 2))"

This variation changes output inspection rather than adding another infrastructure concept. Keep the raw JSON while developing a query so a narrow projection does not hide an error or unexpected field.

Common mistake

An empty response does not always mean the resource is absent. Confirm the account, Region, pagination behavior, filters, and caller permissions before concluding that nothing exists.

Cleanup

# This operation is read-only, operational, or needs resource-specific rollback.
# Re-read the command output before changing shared infrastructure.
rm -f part-268-request.json part-268-response.json part-268-payload.bin part-268-debug.log

Local request and response files may contain account IDs, ARNs, names, or service configuration. Remove them when the lab is complete and follow dependency-aware cleanup for any AWS resource you created.

Next, we will learn AWS Certificate Manager: List certificates from the CLI.

Official AWS CLI reference