The error hit like a wall. Your Git reset worked, but the AWS S3 bucket stayed locked behind a read‑only role.
This happens when AWS IAM roles and S3 policies don’t match the permissions your workflow needs. Git reset can rewind local commits, but it cannot change the server‑side access controls that guard S3. If your CI/CD pipeline or deploy scripts push artifacts to an S3 bucket, a read‑only role will block writes every time.
Why Git Reset Fails Against Read‑Only S3 Roles
Git reset is purely local. It manipulates your repository’s history — soft resets keep changes staged, hard resets roll back files to a previous commit. None of that touches AWS. When your deploy tools run, AWS checks IAM role policies and S3 bucket ACLs. A read‑only role typically includes s3:GetObject and s3:ListBucket but not s3:PutObject or s3:DeleteObject. Any attempt to upload will be denied, no matter what Git state you are in.
How to Confirm the Problem
- Review IAM role policies in the AWS console or with
aws iam get-role-policy. - Look for missing
s3:PutObject or s3:DeleteObject in the JSON document. - Test with
aws s3 cp file.txt s3://your-bucket/ — if it fails with AccessDenied, it’s a role restriction.
Fixing Read‑Only Role and S3 Permissions
If you control IAM, add needed actions to the role’s policy. Ensure the effect is "Allow" for Resource set to the correct bucket ARN. If policies are managed by another team, request a new role or temporary credentials with write access. Avoid making buckets public; use scoped roles to keep security tight while enabling deploys.
Integrating Git Reset with AWS S3 Deploys
Once the IAM role is updated, your workflow can combine Git reset for history management with S3 sync or cp commands to ship revised assets. In pipelines, update the AWS CLI commands or SDK calls to use the correct role via aws sts assume-role before writing to S3.
The key takeaway: Git reset solves local repo state. AWS S3 read‑only roles are an entirely different layer. To deploy successfully, both must align.
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