Positron 2025.11.0 has preview support for AWS Bedrock!

[jthomasmock]

As of Positron 2025.11.0, we have added initial preview support for AWS Bedrock for Positron Assistant! This is also available in preview for Positron Pro in the Posit Workbench 2025.09.2 patch release.

AWS Bedrock allows you to use available AI models that your AWS admins have enabled for your user/role.

Caution

While Databot can also use arbitrary models from Bedrock, in Bedrock we currently only suggest using Anthropic models with Databot per our testing during its Research Preview.

We'd love to hear your feedback or answer questions after trying out AWS Bedrock in Positron Assistant and Databot!

Setup

Prior to setting up AWS Bedrock as a model provider in Positron, you must gain access to AWS Bedrock for your user.

An AWS Admin can provide AWS Bedrock for your IAM role by following the AWS Bedrock documentation

Posit Workbench

To access Bedrock on Posit Workbench, we recommend that your admins first enable AWS Managed Credentials. This will make your AWS IAM credentials ambiently available in your Positron Pro sessions.

Admins can also pre-enable AWS Bedrock for Positron Assistant by setting the following in user's settings.json in the Positron Pro default settings.

"positron.assistant.enable": true,
"positron.assistant.enabledProviders": ["amazon-bedrock"]

Use AWS Bedrock in Positron Pro

Open a Positron Pro Session after your admin has enabled AWS Credentials as indicated above.

1. Run the command Positron Assistant: Configure Language Model Providers to open the Provider Configuration dialog

2. In the “Configure Language Model Providers” dialog:

   • Select “Amazon Bedrock” from the list of providers
   • Click the “Sign in” button
   • Signing in should be near instant. Positron Assistant will automatically register supported models.

3. Use Amazon Bedrock models in the Positron Assistant chat pane and inline chat!

Positron Desktop: Use AWS CLI SSO

This is the most straightforward method to access Amazon Bedrock in Positron Desktop.

1. Download and install the AWS CLI

2. Configure your AWS credentials for the AWS CLI

3. Login with the AWS CLI

   • If you use aws sso login, you will sign into your default profile
   • If you use aws sso login --profile <PROFILE_NAME>, you will need to set the AWS_PROFILE environment variable, as Positron looks at your default AWS profile unless AWS_PROFILE is specified.

If you have multiple AWS profiles configured, set the AWS_PROFILE environment variable in your shell launch script, such as ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc; or, export these variables in a terminal before launching positron from the same terminal.
- We're working on an easier way to specify these variables directly in Positron in #9649

When the SSO credentials expire, refresh them by running aws sso login --profile <PROFILE_NAME> in a terminal. In the future, we hope to have a credential refresh flow: positron#9652.

Once you have authentication ready, you can enable AWS Bedrock in Positron via editing your settings.json:

"positron.assistant.enable": true,
"positron.assistant.enabledProviders": ["amazon-bedrock"]

Login to Amazon Bedrock in Positron

Once you have both logged in with the AWS CLI and enabled Bedrock in Positron, you can then sign into Amazon Bedrock in Positron itself.

1. Run the command Positron Assistant: Configure Language Model Providers to open the Provider Configuration dialog

2. In the “Configure Language Model Providers” dialog:

   • Select “Amazon Bedrock” from the list of providers
   • Click the “Sign in” button
   • Signing in should be near instant. Positron Assistant will automatically register supported models.

3. Use Amazon Bedrock models in the Positron Assistant chat pane and inline chat!