Supercharge regulated workloads with Claude Code and Amazon Bedrock

Please note that the following post is intended for informational purposes only. The approach detailed below may not be suitable for all organizations or compliance programs. It is important to evaluate this potential solution against the compliance requirements of your organization and any applicable regulatory obligations you may have. The availability of Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 in the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions introduces an on-ramp for AI-assisted development for workloads with regulatory or compliance requirements, including International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Claude Sonnet 5 holds FedRAMP Class D (formerly High) certification and DoD Impact Level 4 and 5 (IL4/IL5) authorization, and Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 hold FedRAMP Class D certification on Amazon Bedrock ( verify current model certification status ). In this post, we explore how to use these models on Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US) with Claude Code , Anthropic’s agentic coding tool. With this solution, you can run AI-assisted workflows that speed up everyday development tasks while maintaining compliance alignment. Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US) AWS GovCloud (US) Regions are designed specifically for US customers with elevated compliance needs . You can deploy generative AI workloads to sensitive environments while maintaining compliance controls. Amazon Bedrock is built with security-focused features, including: Built-in data protection where customer content isn’t stored, logged, or used to train AWS models or shared with third parties. FedRAMP Class D (formerly High) certification and DoD Cloud Service Provider (CSP) SRG IL4/IL5 authorization pathways, supporting government agencies’ compliance requirements. See the Amazon Bedrock models compliance page for current model-level certification status. Integration with existing security controls and compliance frameworks available in AWS GovCloud (US), maintaining the same high security standards as other AWS Regions while providing additional authorization pathways. Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US) supports two endpoint surfaces, bedrock-runtime and bedrock-mantle, both powered by the same underlying Mantle inference engine with Zero Operator Access (ZOA) architecture. The bedrock-runtime endpoint uses the AWS SDK (InvokeModel and Converse APIs) and supports Amazon Bedrock Guardrails, Amazon Bedrock Knowledge Bases, Agents, and invocation logging. This makes it the recommended choice for most new applications, particularly those requiring audit trails. The bedrock-mantle endpoint supports the Anthropic Messages API natively and provides access to capabilities currently available only on that surface, such as server-side tools, background inference, and Projects . Both endpoints are available for Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5.5, and Claude Sonnet 5, with bedrock-runtime available in both AWS GovCloud (US) Regions (US-West and US-East) and bedrock-mantle available in AWS GovCloud (US-West). Claude Code Claude Code is Anthropic’s agentic coding tool that reads your codebase, edits files, runs commands, and integrates with your development tools. Powered by models such as Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 on Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US), it operates directly in your terminal, your preferred integrated development environments ( IDEs ) such as VS Code and JetBrains, and in the background with the Claude Agent SDK . Claude Code understands your entire codebase and can work across multiple files and tools to get things done. Claude Code can: Write code and fix bugs spanning multiple files across your codebase. Answer questions about your code’s architecture and logic. Execute and fix tests, linting, and other commands. Search through Git history, resolve merge conflicts, and create commits and pull requests. Connect to external tools and data sources with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) , including the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) , Terraform, and Kubernetes. Spawn sub-agents that work on different parts of a task simultaneously. Customize behavior with CLAUDE.md memory files, skills for repeatable workflows, and hooks for pre/post-action automation. Automate recurring tasks and integrate with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) through GitHub Actions or GitLab CI/CD . To learn more, see Anthropic’s articles: Claude Code tutorials and Claude Code: Best practices for agentic coding . Solution overview: Try Claude Code with Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US) This section provides step-by-step instructions for setting up and configuring Claude Code to work with Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US), including prerequisites, installation commands, environment configuration, and verification steps. Prerequisites Before you get started, make sure that you have the following in place: An AWS GovCloud (US) account with access to Amazon Bedrock. Appropriate AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles and permissions for Amazon Bedrock. At minimum, your IAM policy should include: For bedrock-runtime: bedrock:InvokeModel , bedrock:InvokeModelWithResponseStream , bedrock:ListInferenceProfiles , and bedrock:GetInferenceProfile . For bedrock-mantle (if using the Mantle endpoint): bedrock-mantle:CreateInference , bedrock-mantle:GetProject , bedrock-mantle:ListProjects , and bedrock-mantle:ListModels . Alternatively, attach the AmazonBedrockMantleInferenceAccess managed policy. Amazon Bedrock model access to Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5.5, and Claude Sonnet 5 enabled in your AWS GovCloud (US) account. AWS CLI configured with valid AWS session credentials using short-term API keys or AWS SSO login. Set up Claude Code with Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US) After configuring AWS CLI with your credentials, install Claude Code using one of the following methods: macOS, Linux, WSL: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash Windows PowerShell: irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex Windows CMD: curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.cmd -o install.cmd && install.cmd && del install.cmd Homebrew (macOS/Linux): brew install --cask claude-code For additional installation methods, see Claude Code installation docs . Option A: Interactive setup wizard (recommended) Navigate to your project: cd your-code-project Launch Claude Code: claude Run through the login wizard: /login At the login prompt, select 3rd-party platform , then Amazon Bedrock . Follow the wizard prompts to choose your authentication method, region (us-gov-west-1), and pin your models. The wizard saves configuration to your settings file automatically. If you have previously configured Claude Code, run /setup-bedrock to reopen the wizard and update your credentials, region, or model pins. Option B: Manual environment variable configuration For scripted or enterprise deployments, set the following environment variables: export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 export AWS_REGION='us-gov-west-1' export ANTHROPIC_MODEL='us-gov.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5-5' To use Claude Opus 5.5 as the primary model instead: export ANTHROPIC_MODEL='us-gov.anthropic.claude-opus-5-5' To pin specific model versions for consistent team deployments: export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL='us-gov.anthropic.claude-opus-5-5' export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL='us-gov.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5-5' Then navigate to your project and launch Claude Code: cd your-code-project claude Option C: Using the Bedrock Mantle endpoint Bedrock Mantle supports the Anthropic Messages API natively and is available in AWS GovCloud (US-West). To route Claude Code through Mantle: export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_MANTLE=1 export AWS_REGION='us-gov-west-1' When both bedrock-runtime and bedrock-mantle are needed in the same session: export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_MANTLE=1 Note: Guardrails and invocation logging are available exclusively through the bedrock-runtime endpoint. For deployments requiring these compliance features, use the bedrock