AmazonSSMAutomationRole

Summary

Provides permissions for EC2 Automation service to execute activities defined within Automation documents

Permissions imported from the AWS Managed Policy Reference Guide; other sections pending editorial review.

Identity

ARN

arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRoleCopy ARN

Default version

v9

Created

2016-12-05

Last edited

2026-03-20

Services

cloudformation, ec2, lambda, sns, ssm, ssmmessages

Control-plane actions (185)

By access level: 39 List, 3 Permissions management, 52 Read, 6 Tagging, 85 Write.

Data-plane actions (4)

By access level: 2 Read, 2 Write.

Excluded and conditional actions

No patterns are excluded by NotAction or Deny statements.

Resource scope and attachment

Resource scope across granted actions: mixed.

Can be attached: Yes, to users, groups and roles.

Why this tier

• Grants at least 80% of the write and permissions-management actions of: ssm (76 of 76).
• Can read secret values or decrypt data. Reads are not a High privilege rule.

Guidance

Pending editorial review. The permission data on this page comes straight from AWS; this section will be filled in once a reviewed guide exists.

Related policies

Same service

• AIOpsOperatorAccess
• AmazonEC2ImageReferencesAccessPolicy
• AmazonEC2RoleforSSM
• AmazonEKSConnectorServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonEKSLocalOutpostClusterPolicy
• AmazonElasticFileSystemsUtils
• AmazonGuardDutyServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonInspector2ServiceRolePolicy

Same domain

• AccountAccessManagerServiceRolePolicy
• AIDevOpsAgentAccessPolicy
• AIDevOpsOrganizationsAccessPolicy
• AmazonCloudWatchEvidentlyServiceRolePolicy
• AmazonCodeCatalystSupportAccess
• AmazonDetectiveOrganizationsAccess
• AmazonDetectiveServiceLinkedRolePolicy
• AmazonDevOpsGuruOrganizationsAccess

Frequently asked questions

Pending editorial review. The permission data on this page comes straight from AWS; this section will be filled in once a reviewed guide exists.

Policy JSON

Download policy.json

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "lambda:InvokeFunction"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:lambda:*:*:function:Automation*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ec2:CreateImage",
        "ec2:CopyImage",
        "ec2:DeregisterImage",
        "ec2:DescribeImages",
        "ec2:DeleteSnapshot",
        "ec2:StartInstances",
        "ec2:RunInstances",
        "ec2:StopInstances",
        "ec2:TerminateInstances",
        "ec2:DescribeInstanceStatus",
        "ec2:CreateTags",
        "ec2:DeleteTags",
        "ec2:DescribeTags",
        "cloudformation:CreateStack",
        "cloudformation:DescribeStackEvents",
        "cloudformation:DescribeStacks",
        "cloudformation:UpdateStack",
        "cloudformation:DeleteStack",
        "cloudformation:TagResource",
        "cloudformation:UntagResource"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ssm:*"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "sns:Publish"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:sns:*:*:Automation*"
      ]
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "ssmmessages:OpenDataChannel"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:*:ssm:*:*:session/*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Version history

Current version v9, edited by AWS on 2026-03-20. Version history is recorded from 2026-11-11. Earlier versions are in the IAM console under Policy versions.

Attach snippets

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name ROLE_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRole
aws iam attach-user-policy --user-name USER_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRole
aws iam attach-group-policy --group-name GROUP_NAME --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRole

Resources:
  ExampleRole:
    Type: AWS::IAM::Role
    Properties:
      AssumeRolePolicyDocument: {}  # replace with your trust policy
      ManagedPolicyArns:
        - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRole

resource "aws_iam_role_policy_attachment" "service_role_amazonssmautomationrole" {
  role       = aws_iam_role.example.name
  policy_arn = "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRole"
}

role.addManagedPolicy(
  iam.ManagedPolicy.fromAwsManagedPolicyName("service-role/AmazonSSMAutomationRole"),
);

Sources

Pending editorial review. No editorial sources are listed yet.

• Official AWS reference for AmazonSSMAutomationRole
• Report a data issue