aws cli output automatically being sent to vi

It was the PAGER environment variable set to "less" (which I was confusing with vi).

This fix is to update the ~/.aws/config file and setting cli_pager to an empty value, e.g. :

[default]region = us-west-2output = jsoncli_pager =

Thank you to Sorin who commented on my question lead me to the answer.

linux bash zsh aws-cli oh-my-zsh

Just run your command with --no-cli-pager like so

aws ec2 describe-instances --no-cli-pager

linux bash zsh aws-cli oh-my-zsh

You can also run a one liner command:

aws configure set cli_pager ""

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