Can I use AWS named profiles without placing them in a credentials file?

Question

Is it possible to create a named profile without creating a credentials file?

For example, storing the profile in path variables?

Answer 1

No, this is not possible.

You can pass information like the aws_access_key_id & aws_secret_access_key via the CLI or store them in path variables using export but for them to persist & be grouped under a name, they must be stored somewhere.

That somewhere must be a credentials or config file.