storing-and-querying-vectors
storing and querying vectors
What it does
- Hundreds/thousands of sustained queries per second (QPS): Wrong tool. Recommend OpenSearch.
- Tiered (bulk + hot): S3 Vectors for storage + OpenSearch Serverless for real-time. See references/limits-and-patterns.md.
- Cost-effective storage, infrequent queries, RAG: S3 Vectors is the right fit. Proceed.
- Simple query: Existing index, skip to Step 6
- Standard: You MUST list existing indexes first and suggest reusing if relevant. Else, new index + store vectors, follow Steps 2-6
- Migration or multi-tenant: Read references/limits-and-patterns.md first, then Steps 2-6
- You MUST check whether AWS MCP tools or AWS CLI is available and inform user if missing
Requirements & configuration
- Optional: add --return-metadata and/or --filter '{"topic":{"$eq":"science"}}' (both require GetVectors permission). See references/metadata-filtering.md.
- Using --filter or --return-metadata requires both s3vectors:QueryVectors AND s3vectors:GetVectors IAM permissions. Without GetVectors, these options return 403.
Derived from the skill's own SKILL.md documentation · extracted 2026-07-23
storing-and-querying-vectors FAQ
What does the storing-and-querying-vectors skill do?
>- Store and query vector embeddings using Amazon S3 Vectors, a cost-effective long-term vector storage service with its own API namespace (s3vectors). Triggers on: create S3 vector bucket, vector index, store embeddings, semantic search, RAG vector storage, similarity search, vector database, migrate from other vector databases. Do NOT use for: querying tabular data (use querying-data-lake), S3 object storage, or hundreds/thousands of sustained QPS (use OpenSearch). Hundreds/thousands of sustained queries per second (QPS): Wrong tool. Recommend OpenSearch. Tiered (bulk + hot): S3 Vectors for storage + OpenSearch Serverless for real-time. See references/limits-and-patterns.md.
What does storing-and-querying-vectors require?
Optional: add --return-metadata and/or --filter '{"topic":{"$eq":"science"}}' (both require GetVectors permission). See references/metadata-filtering.md. Using --filter or --return-metadata requires both s3vectors:QueryVectors AND s3vectors:GetVectors IAM permissions. Without GetVectors, these options return 403.
How do I install storing-and-querying-vectors?
Run: npx -y skills add https://github.com/aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws --skill storing-and-querying-vectors --agent claude-code — the source lives at github.com/aws/agent-toolkit-for-aws.
Maintain storing-and-querying-vectors?
Let people know it's listed here — add the badge (live metrics, light/dark aware) or a plain link to your README or docs.
[storing-and-querying-vectors on getagentictools](https://getagentictools.com/skills/aws-agent-toolkit-for-aws-storing-and-querying-vectors?ref=badge) npx agentictools info skills/aws-agent-toolkit-for-aws-storing-and-querying-vectors The second line is the CLI lookup for this page — handy in READMEs and docs.
