Bedrock Claude Configuration for Aider

Configure Aider to use AWS Bedrock's Claude Sonnet 4.5 as the primary coding model and Claude Haiku 4.5 as the weak model, with optimized settings for professional development workflows.

What This Does

Sets up Aider with AWS Bedrock Claude models featuring:

Instructions

1. **Verify AWS Bedrock Access**

- Ensure you have AWS credentials configured (`~/.aws/credentials` or environment variables)

- Confirm access to Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Haiku 4.5 models in your AWS region

- Check that your IAM role has `bedrock:InvokeModel` permissions

2. **Create Aider Configuration File**

- Create or edit `~/.aider.conf.yml` in your home directory

- Add the following configuration:

```yaml

model: bedrock/global.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929-v1:0

weak-model: bedrock/us.anthropic.claude-haiku-4-5-20251001-v1:0

thinking-tokens: 32k

add-gitignore-files: true

auto-commits: false

dark-mode: true

check-model-accepts-settings: false

show-model-warnings: false

```

3. **Configuration Breakdown**

- `model`: Primary model for complex tasks (Sonnet 4.5 with global endpoint)

- `weak-model`: Fast model for simple tasks (Haiku 4.5 with US endpoint)

- `thinking-tokens: 32k`: Extended reasoning capacity for complex problems

- `add-gitignore-files: true`: Automatically include .gitignore patterns

- `auto-commits: false`: Manual control over commits (safer for review)

- `dark-mode: true`: Dark theme for better eye comfort

- `check-model-accepts-settings: false`: Skip validation for faster startup

- `show-model-warnings: false`: Cleaner output without repetitive warnings

4. **Test the Configuration**

- Open a terminal in any git repository

- Run: `aider`

- Verify the startup message shows Bedrock Claude models

- Test with a simple prompt: "Add a hello world function"

5. **Project-Specific Overrides** (Optional)

- Create `.aider.conf.yml` in your project root to override global settings

- Example: Enable auto-commits for a specific project:

```yaml

auto-commits: true

```

Usage Examples

**Start Aider with this configuration:**

```bash

aider

```

**Complex refactoring (uses Sonnet):**

```

/add src/

Refactor the authentication module to use JWT tokens instead of sessions

```

**Quick documentation (uses Haiku):**

```

Add docstrings to all functions in utils.py

```

**Architecture planning (leverages thinking-tokens):**

```

Design a scalable microservices architecture for this e-commerce platform

```

Important Notes

Troubleshooting

**Model not found error:**

**Credential errors:**

**Slow responses:**