From 931fbed8b3260749b01b68f40548537311d63f27 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: A <258483684+la14-1@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2026 11:54:18 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] fix(ux): clarify credential detection messages to avoid
 confusion (#2147)

Distinguish between 'no local credentials' and 'using spawn-cached credentials'
so users understand why an initial failure message is followed by a success.

Fixes #2142

Agent: ux-engineer

Co-authored-by: B <6723574+louisgv@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 packages/cli/src/aws/aws.ts | 6 +++---
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/packages/cli/src/aws/aws.ts b/packages/cli/src/aws/aws.ts
index ee45d9d4..7d5a68c9 100644
--- a/packages/cli/src/aws/aws.ts
+++ b/packages/cli/src/aws/aws.ts
@@ -507,7 +507,7 @@ export async function authenticate(): Promise<void> {
       logInfo(`AWS CLI ready, using region: ${region}`);
       return;
     }
-    logWarn("AWS CLI found but credentials invalid or expired");
+    logWarn("No AWS credentials available in local environment");
   }
 
   // 2. Check env vars for REST mode
@@ -553,10 +553,10 @@ export async function authenticate(): Promise<void> {
         ]);
         if (result.exitCode === 0) {
           lightsailMode = "cli";
-          logInfo(`AWS CLI ready with cached credentials, using region: ${cachedRegion}`);
+          logInfo(`AWS CLI ready with credentials cached by spawn. Using region: ${cachedRegion}`);
           return;
         }
-        logWarn("Cached AWS credentials invalid or expired");
+        logWarn("Credentials cached by spawn are invalid or expired");
         awsAccessKeyId = "";
         awsSecretAccessKey = "";
         delete process.env.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID;