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Displaying the active Amplify Environment alongside the current Git branch

May 8, 2021
This post is part of an ongoing series focused on tips and tricks when building fullstack serverless apps with AWS Amplify.

Working with a lot of Git branches can get a bit tricky when they align to different Amplify environments. I usually find myself checking amplify status or amplify env list to determine the active environment. Below is an approach that is a bit more dynamic and similar to what Git and Python virtual environments show while working in the terminal.


You’ll need to have the below installed for the function to take effect.

Display the active Amplify env

Add the below into your .zshrc or .bashrc. The output of the function can be adjusted depending on how you’d like to display the information. I display mine to the left of the current working directory by adjusting my zsh custom theme (below). This puts the environment name in a similar spot to where an active Python virtual environment name will show.

# .zshrc

amplify_env () {
    PROJECT_DIR=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null) 


    if [ -f "$ENV" ]; then
        env_info=$(cat $ENV | jq -r ".envName") 
        echo "(🚀 $env_info)"

The function checks for the current working environment name in the <project>/amplify/.config/local-env-info.json file. This approach requires a few extra steps but is quicker than re-computing on each terminal input using the amplify status CLI command.

After re-sourcing your .zshrc (below), the environment function can be invoked by running amplify_env in the terminal.

source ~/.zshrc

Adding to a custom theme

If you’re using oh-my-zsh, then you can adjust your theme (or any theme) to add the output of the function so that it shows in the terminal prompts. The updated PROMPT below now includes the Amplify environment function output (${amplify_env}).

# ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes/<my-custom-theme>.zsh-theme

- PROMPT='${ret_status} %{$fg[cyan]%}%c%{$reset_color%} '
+ PROMPT='$(amplify_env) ${ret_status} %{$fg[cyan]%}%c%{$reset_color%} '

Amplify env + Git branch = 🔥

Now the environment is displayed alongside the Git branch that is active. This is a nice way to quickly determine if I need to switch branches or environments to match. Make sure to initialize Git in the project(git init) if the environment name and the Git branch aren’t showing.

Hopefully that helps keep your Amplify environments visually in sync with your current Git branch 🌲.

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