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Amazon Opensearch Service

AWSOfficialPublished by AWS

  • Skill
  • Workflow
  • Cloud and DevOps
  • Apache-2.0
  • Low risk

From the author

Guides migration, provisioning, search, log-analytics, trace-analytics, and Agentic AI Assistant workflows for Amazon OpenSearch Service and Serverless across six capabilities — migration (Solr/ES/self-managed into AOS/AOSS, schema/query translation, sizing, cutover); provisioning (domain + AOSS lifecycle, upgrades, FGAC, monitoring); search (vector / semantic / hybrid / RAG with Bedrock); log-analytics (PPL, OSI, anomaly detection, Dashboards); trace-analytics (OTel spans, service maps, Data Prepper); ai-assistant (natural language data exploration, incident investigation, root cause analysis). Triggers on OpenSearch, AOS, AOSS, Elasticsearch, Solr, vector/k-NN/semantic/hybrid search, RAG, log analytics, PPL, trace analytics, ISM, FAISS, HNSW, Migration Assistant, UltraWarm, OR1, query my data, analyze logs, investigate errors, root cause analysis.
— the description by AWS

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

This skill provides a unified framework for interacting with Amazon OpenSearch Service (AOS) and OpenSearch Serverless (AOSS). It covers the full lifecycle of OpenSearch operations, including migration from legacy systems like Solr or Elasticsearch, infrastructure provisioning, advanced search implementation (including vector and RAG), and observability through log and trace analytics. It also features an Agentic AI Assistant for natural language data exploration and incident investigation, ensuring users can navigate complex cluster management and data analysis tasks without manual query crafting.

What it does

  • Guides migration workflows from Solr, Elasticsearch, or self-managed OpenSearch to AOS/AOSS.
  • Assists with provisioning, lifecycle management, and monitoring of domains and collections.
  • Facilitates implementation of vector, semantic, and hybrid search, including RAG with Bedrock.
  • Supports log and trace analytics using PPL, OpenTelemetry, and anomaly detection.
  • Provides an Agentic AI Assistant for natural language querying and automated incident root cause analysis.
  • Enforces operational best practices for sharding, storage tiering, and security configurations.

When to use it

  • When planning a migration from legacy search engines to Amazon OpenSearch Service.
  • When setting up or optimizing search capabilities, including vector search and RAG.
  • When troubleshooting cluster health, performance, or shard allocation issues.
  • When performing log or trace analysis to investigate system incidents.
  • When you need to generate optimized PPL or DSL queries using natural language.

Advantages

  • Centralizes complex operational knowledge across six distinct OpenSearch capabilities.
  • Reduces manual query complexity by leveraging the Agentic AI Assistant.
  • Provides clear, actionable guidance on production failure modes and migration blockers.
  • Standardizes interactions through consistent CLI and data-plane patterns.
  • Promotes architectural best practices for scaling and cost-effective storage tiering.

Usage examples

“How do I migrate my existing Solr index to Amazon OpenSearch Service?”
The agent identifies the migration capability, explains that Solr to OpenSearch is a refactor migration, and guides you through using the Migration Assistant for data backfill.
“Why is my cluster status yellow and how can I fix it?”
The agent uses the AI Assistant capability to analyze cluster health, check shard allocation, and provide specific commands or steps to resolve unassigned shards.
“Help me set up a RAG pipeline using Bedrock and my OpenSearch domain.”
The agent routes to the search capability, providing instructions on configuring Bedrock connectors and vector index mappings for semantic retrieval.
“Find the root cause of the 503 errors in my application logs from the last hour.”
The agent utilizes the AI Assistant to query logs, perform time-series analysis, and correlate findings to identify the likely root cause of the errors.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/aws/amazon-opensearch-service/download
  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip amazon-opensearch-service.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by AWS

Amazon OpenSearch Service — the unified skill

This skill answers anything about Amazon OpenSearch Service or Serverless across six capabilities. Step 0 below routes the question to ONE capability and points at that capability's entry-point reference. Everything else — when to dispatch, sub-references, capability-specific facts, cross-capability links — lives in the entry-point reference for that capability.

AWS MCP server is recommended, not required. Capability references show standard AWS CLI commands as the primary syntax (e.g., aws opensearch describe-domain, aws opensearchserverless create-collection). Where the AWS MCP server is available, its call_aws tool offers a streamlined alternative — but every operation in this skill MUST work via the AWS CLI alone. Data-plane HTTP calls against AOS / AOSS use awscurl for SigV4-signed requests; this works in both contexts.

Step 0: detect the capability — first thing you do

Pick one of the six capabilities below. State the detected capability in your first sentence (e.g., "Detected capability: SEARCH — semantic search setup with Bedrock embeddings."). Then load the entry-point reference; that file describes when to dispatch, indexes the rest of the capability's files, and routes you to the next step.

CapabilityEntry-point reference
migration — Solr / Elasticsearch / self-managed OpenSearch into AOS or AOSS. Schema/query translation, sizing, cutover.references/assessment-workflow.md
provisioning — Provisioning and managing AOS domains and AOSS collections. Lifecycle, upgrades, storage tiers, FGAC, monitoring.references/provisioning-reference.md
search — Vector / semantic / hybrid / sparse / dense / RAG retrieval. Bedrock connectors, FAISS HNSW vs Lucene.references/search-semantic-search-guide.md
log-analytics — Log search, observability, PPL, OSI ingestion, anomaly detection, OpenSearch Dashboards. Splunk/Datadog/ELK alternatives.references/log-analytics-guide.md
trace-analytics — Distributed traces with OpenTelemetry. Span queries, service maps, Data Prepper.references/trace-analytics-trace-queries.md
ai-assistant — Agentic AI Assistant: auto-discovers indices, generates optimized PPL/DSL queries, summarizes results, and investigates incidents end-to-end. No manual query crafting needed.references/ai-assistant.md

If a prompt spans capabilities (e.g., "migrate from Solr AND set up RAG on the new domain"), pick the dominant capability for the response and close with a one-line handoff to the other capability's entry-point ref.

Universal rules (apply to ALL capabilities)

These rules apply to every response, regardless of capability. Capability-specific rules (sizing math, shape detection, Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service capability matrix, k-NN engine selection) live in the entry-point references, not here.

  • Report header (every multi-section response). Begin every multi-section response with a single fenced metadata block: > Generated: <ISO 8601 timestamp> | Skill: amazon-opensearch-service v<N>. Get the time by calling the current_time tool (returns ISO 8601 in UTC). Read the skill version from this file's frontmatter version: field. For one-line answers (terse FOCUSED_OPERATIONAL replies, anti-pattern refusals) the header is optional; for any multi-section deliverable it is REQUIRED. Place it immediately after the report title and before the first ## heading.

  • No dollar estimates (HARD CONSTRAINT). Never produce $X/month, ~$1,500, or any dollar figure. Route every cost question to https://calculator.aws and stop. If a sub-reference contains dollar figures, treat them as informational context only and do NOT pass them through to the user.

  • No credential leakage (HARD CONSTRAINT). Never include master usernames, KMS key ARNs, VPC endpoint URLs, instance IPs, or account IDs in generated output.

  • Pick one for every A-vs-B decision. Name a primary recommendation in one line with a one-sentence reason. A "go with B if..." caveat is allowed AFTER the primary; never lead with conditional-only guidance.

  • Source restatement. The first 2–3 sentences must restate the source (engine + version + scale) when known, or restate the customer's question in concrete terms. The very first text the user sees must NOT be tool narration, meta-commentary, the report title, or simply restating the question verbatim.

  • No marketing tone. Do NOT use "seamless", "robust", "best-in-class", "production-hardened", "enterprise-grade", "world-class", "cleanly", "elegant". Do NOT stack 3+ vague hedges ("typically", "generally", "usually", "in most cases") in a single recommendation — be specific about when it does and does not apply.

  • Cross-capability handoff. When a user prompt spans capabilities (e.g., "migrate from Solr AND set up RAG on the new domain"), pick the dominant capability for the response, then close with a one-line handoff: "For <other capability>, see references/<other-capability>-<entry>.md."

Cross-cutting references (used across multiple capabilities)

These references are not capability-prefixed because they apply across capabilities. Capability entry-point references load them when relevant; SKILL.md never loads them directly.

Assets (assets/): report templates for FULL_ASSESSMENT renderings (Solr-source, ES-source, executive summary).

What this skill does NOT do

  • Estimate dollar costs. Pricing changes monthly and account-specific (RI, Savings Plan, EDP) discount math is outside this skill's reliable scope. Use https://calculator.aws.

  • Move data. Use Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service (Historical Data Migration for backfill, Live Traffic Migration for live cutover).

  • Build embedding models. Use Amazon Bedrock or SageMaker.

  • Replace Splunk SPL or Datadog APM 1:1. Some queries / detectors / dashboards need rewriting.

  • Tune relevance for a specific catalog. Use OpenSearch Benchmark big5 workload + your own judgment list.

Guardrail — where this skill's own files live (MCP vs local install)

This skill can be loaded two ways, and they resolve the skill's own bundled files from different places. Determine how the skill was loaded before reading a reference or running a script:

  • Loaded through the AWS MCP server's retrieve_skill tool: The skill is not installed on the local filesystem. You MUST fetch each reference or script via retrieve_skill with the file parameter (e.g. file="references/architecture.md" or file="scripts/deploy.py"), and run the script from the returned content. Do NOT file_read these paths locally — they do not exist on disk.

  • Installed locally (e.g. .kiro/skills/your-skill/ or ~/.claude/skills/your-skill/): Read and run files from the local skill directory using relative paths.

This distinction applies only to the skill's own packaged files. User data and session artifacts are always read from and written to the user's working directory. Never fetch or write customer data through retrieve_skill.

Files

references/assessment-knowledge-retrieval.md

Knowledge retrieval recipe — topic → tool → URL

When a [verify] tag remains in a draft, this file says where to look.

The skill draft has stable-core embedded. ONLY hit external retrieval for version-volatile values. Resolve all [verify] tags in ONE batched pass — never per-claim.

Three retrieval primitives

The first two primitives are AWS-MCP-server-specific. They're convenient when the MCP server is loaded, but they are NOT required — every retrieval below has a non-MCP fallback (column 3).

PrimitiveWhenNon-MCP fallback
aws___read_documentation (AWS MCP)AWS-domain URLs only (docs.aws.amazon.com/*, aws.amazon.com/*)WebFetch (or curl <url>)
WebFetchNon-AWS hosts (docs.opensearch.org, solr.apache.org, elastic.co, github.com, etc.)curl <url>
aws___get_regional_availability (AWS MCP)Confirm an AWS service or instance class is available in a target regionaws opensearch list-instance-type-details --region <region> (CLI) or aws ec2 describe-instance-type-offerings --region <region>

Per-domain routing rules:

DomainTool
docs.aws.amazon.com/*aws___read_documentation
aws.amazon.com/blogs/*aws___read_documentation (or WebFetch as fallback)
aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/*aws___read_documentation
docs.opensearch.org/*WebFetch
opensearch.org/blog/*WebFetch
solr.apache.org/*WebFetch
elastic.co/*WebFetch
github.com/opensearch-project/*gh CLI (Bash) or WebFetch
lucene.apache.org/*WebFetch

Batched verification recipe

After drafting Steps 3–7 with [verify] tags, do this in ONE pass:

  1. Gather all [verify] markers

  2. Group by domain (one call per domain when possible)

  3. Run independent retrievals concurrently (multiple tool calls in a single message)

  4. Resolve each tag: replace [verify] with confirmed value + source URL + retrieval timestamp in Citations

Topic → URL map

Amazon OpenSearch Service (Managed)
TopicURL
Service overviewhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/what-is.html
Best practices indexhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/bp.html
Storage best practiceshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/bp-storage.html
Sharding best practiceshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/bp-sharding.html
Instance best practiceshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/bp-instances.html
Petabyte-scalehttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/petabyte-scale.html
Supported instance typeshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/supported-instance-types.html
OR1 / OR2https://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/or1.html
Multi-AZ with Standbyhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/managedomains-multiaz.html
Auto-Tunehttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/auto-tune.html
CloudWatch metricshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/managedomains-cloudwatchmetrics.html
CloudWatch alarmshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/cloudwatch-alarms.html
Handling errorshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/handling-errors.html
UltraWarmhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/ultrawarm.html
Cold storagehttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/cold-storage.html
Index State Management (ISM)https://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/ism.html
Snapshotshttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/managedomains-snapshots.html
Version migrationhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/version-migration.html
Pricinghttps://aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/pricing/
Amazon OpenSearch Serverless
OpenSearch Ingestion (OSI)
Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service
Security
OpenSearch project (engine docs)
Source-engine documentation

Common verification queries

[verify] valueWhat to checkWhere
Current instance familiesLatest AOS supported instance typessupported-instance-types.html
Regional availability of r8g.4xlarge.searchAOS instance availability per regionaws___get_regional_availability
Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service supported sourcesLatest Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service matrixsolution-overview.html
OS Serverless OCU capsCurrent default + maxserverless-scaling.html
OS Serverless NextGen vs Classic capabilitiesCurrent matrixserverless-vector-search.html
max_clause_count default for current OSSearch settingsdocs.opensearch.org/latest/install-and-configure/configuring-opensearch/search-settings/
GovCloud Historical Data Migration shard-size capLatest Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service GovCloud notessolution-overview.html
Latest OpenSearch GA versionRelease notesopensearch.org/lines/
FAISS HNSW vs IVF on ServerlessCurrent vector matrixserverless-vector-search.html

Citation format for reports

Every [verify]-tagged claim that's resolved must be cited in the report's Citations section:

- AOS Best Practices — Sharding (`bp-sharding.html`), retrieved <date>: <quoted value> — see references/sizing.md for canonical shard-cap heuristics
- Migration Assistant for Amazon OpenSearch Service solution overview, retrieved <date>: <quoted source/target matrix>
- Amazon OpenSearch Service pricing page, retrieved <date>: <quoted OCU definition> — see references/sizing.md for OCU sizing math

Aim for ≥ 3 unique URLs in any full assessment. Cite what you used; no arbitrary floor.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Needs: Needs an MCP server

Security

What our scanner noticed· Low risk

  • Instructions that use the network

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Published by
AWS
Publisher
AWS (Official)
Source
aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws · plugins/aws-data-analytics/skills/amazon-opensearch-service · commit 0a218f8
Licence
Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
  • NOTICE (added by AutoGineer from NOTICE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
Synced
Also distributed in
aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by AWS.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download amazon-opensearch-service.zip