title: Missing AWS properties when creating AWS application
body: <p>I'm struggling to figure out how to add AWS properties to my application.properties (or application.yml) file, and I'm not sure what I have set up incorrectly in STS.</p>
  
  <p>I can reproduce this creating a simple AWS app using Spring Initializr. I'm adding AWS, Consul and REST because that's what the real app is using.  Here's the POM it generates.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
  &lt;project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"&gt;
  &lt;modelVersion&gt;4.0.0&lt;/modelVersion&gt;
  
  &lt;groupId&gt;edu.dkist&lt;/groupId&gt;
  &lt;artifactId&gt;staging-service-demo&lt;/artifactId&gt;
  &lt;version&gt;0.0.1-SNAPSHOT&lt;/version&gt;
  &lt;packaging&gt;jar&lt;/packaging&gt;
  
  &lt;name&gt;staging-service-demo&lt;/name&gt;
  &lt;description&gt;Demo project for Spring Boot&lt;/description&gt;
  
  &lt;parent&gt;
      &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.boot&lt;/groupId&gt;
      &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-boot-starter-parent&lt;/artifactId&gt;
      &lt;version&gt;1.5.8.RELEASE&lt;/version&gt;
      &lt;relativePath/&gt; &lt;!-- lookup parent from repository --&gt;
  &lt;/parent&gt;
  
  &lt;properties&gt;
      &lt;project.build.sourceEncoding&gt;UTF-8&lt;/project.build.sourceEncoding&gt;
      &lt;project.reporting.outputEncoding&gt;UTF-8&lt;/project.reporting.outputEncoding&gt;
      &lt;java.version&gt;1.8&lt;/java.version&gt;
      &lt;spring-cloud.version&gt;Dalston.SR4&lt;/spring-cloud.version&gt;
  &lt;/properties&gt;
  
  &lt;dependencies&gt;
      &lt;dependency&gt;
          &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.cloud&lt;/groupId&gt;
          &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-cloud-starter-aws&lt;/artifactId&gt;
      &lt;/dependency&gt;
      &lt;dependency&gt;
          &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.cloud&lt;/groupId&gt;
          &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-cloud-starter-consul-config&lt;/artifactId&gt;
      &lt;/dependency&gt;
      &lt;dependency&gt;
          &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.boot&lt;/groupId&gt;
          &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-boot-starter-jersey&lt;/artifactId&gt;
      &lt;/dependency&gt;
  
      &lt;dependency&gt;
          &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.boot&lt;/groupId&gt;
          &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-boot-starter-test&lt;/artifactId&gt;
          &lt;scope&gt;test&lt;/scope&gt;
      &lt;/dependency&gt;
  &lt;/dependencies&gt;
  
  &lt;dependencyManagement&gt;
      &lt;dependencies&gt;
          &lt;dependency&gt;
              &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.cloud&lt;/groupId&gt;
              &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-cloud-dependencies&lt;/artifactId&gt;
              &lt;version&gt;${spring-cloud.version}&lt;/version&gt;
              &lt;type&gt;pom&lt;/type&gt;
              &lt;scope&gt;import&lt;/scope&gt;
          &lt;/dependency&gt;
      &lt;/dependencies&gt;
  &lt;/dependencyManagement&gt;
  
  &lt;build&gt;
      &lt;plugins&gt;
          &lt;plugin&gt;
              &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.boot&lt;/groupId&gt;
              &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-boot-maven-plugin&lt;/artifactId&gt;
          &lt;/plugin&gt;
      &lt;/plugins&gt;
  &lt;/build&gt;
  
  
  &lt;/project&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm not adding any code to the application for this sample, only the code that is generated. This was a test to see if something was wrong with the app I was working on. When I try to add an application property, nothing shows for AWS. The same is true if I create a YAML file.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/v85N5.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/v85N5.png" alt="Missing AWS properties"></a></p>
  
  <p>If I force the issue, and add it anyway STS says the property is unknown.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/wfzCV.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/wfzCV.png" alt="Unknown property aws"></a></p>
  
  <p>Compiling the app throws an exception:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: There is not EC2 meta data available, because the application is not running in the EC2 environment. Region detection is only possible if the application is running on a EC2 instance
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The app is not running on an EC2 instance, it's running locally. From what I've read I need to add the aws.region.auto if it's not running on EC2, but I can't get the app to acknowledge the property exists. Same happens with the access key and secret key.</p>