Reviewer name and names of any other individual's who aided in reviewer	Toby Hodges
Do you understand and agree to our policy of having open and named reviews, and having your review included with the published manuscript. (If no, please inform the editor that you cannot review this manuscript.)	Yes
Is the language of sufficient quality?	Yes
Please add additional comments on language quality to clarify if needed
Is there a clear statement of need explaining what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?	Yes
Additional Comments
Is the source code available, and has an appropriate Open Source Initiative license <a href="https://opensource.org/licenses" target="_blank">(https://opensource.org/licenses)</a> been assigned to the code?	Yes
Additional Comments	The repository containing the scripts includes an MIT license and a CITATION.cff file, which is very good practice. However, the manuscript (and Zenodo record) currently states that "The scripts are freely available to download and use under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 attribution license" -- this sentence and the Zenodo record should be corrected to reflect the MIT license of the software.
As Open Source Software are there guidelines on how to contribute, report issues or seek support on the code?	No
Additional Comments	Scripts include contact information for the corresponding author, and the CITATION.cff includes contact details for all authors. However, the repository contains no contributing guide, or guidance in the README.md, that could help would-be contributors understand how to get involved or contribute most effectively. The project README and the tutorial mentioned in the manuscript focus on usage of the scripts.
Is the code executable?	Unable to test
Additional Comments	The scripts run, but I was unable to test them fully because of the rigidity of the required cloud environment configuration. Due to internal constraints the AWS environment I am working with could not be adjusted to fit exactly with the specifications of the authors' system in time for this review to be filed. Specifically, we could not configure a subdomain for the cloud instances created, and the way we handle security groups is also different. Although neither of these differences would prevent cloud instances from being created, the way the csinstances_create script cannot run without them. I note that the script is written with no default values set, and with the assumptions that 1. all of the required parameters will be included in the resourcesIDs.txt file and 2. that these parameters will appear in a fixed order. I believe it would be reasonable to allow users to run the scripts without having first created a hosted zone for the instances that will be created. For example, by adjusting the script to use default values where possible if parameters have not been set in the resourcesIDs.txt file. It would also be helpful to allow users to specify parameters in an arbitrary order within the resourcesIDs.txt file. Furthermore, I recommend that the authors explore the use of Launch Templates (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-launch-templates.html) to specify defaults for launched instances, which may prove simpler and more robust than the current approach of reading parameters from a text file and substituting those into a call to `ec2 run-instances`.
Is installation/deployment sufficiently outlined in the paper and documentation, and does it proceed as outlined?	Yes
Additional Comments	The paper and online tutorial provide clear and thorough guidance on how to use the scripts, including details that anticipated many of the questions that I had about using the software. I encourage the authors to link directly from the source repository containing the scripts to the tutorial, to make it easier for would-be users to find the information they need on how to use and adapt the scripts.
Is the documentation provided clear and user friendly?	Yes
Additional Comments	The accompanying tutorial is clear and well-structured. As mentioned above, I recommend that more links are created from the scripts source repository and that tutorial site, to help potential users find the relevant documentation to follow.
Is there enough clear information in the documentation to install, run and test this tool, including information on where to seek help if required?	Yes
Additional Comments
Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies, and is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level?	Yes
Additional Comments	https://cloud-span.github.io/cloud-admin-guide-2-managing-aws-instances/setup.html contains information about the Bash version required and good instructions about how to install/update it on different operating systems. The AWS CLI tool, also required, is not discussed on that page but installation is the topic of a section in the main body of the tutorial.
Have any claims of performance been sufficiently tested and compared to other commonly-used packages?	Not applicable
Additional Comments
Is test data available, either included with the submission or openly available via cited third party sources (e.g. accession numbers, data DOIs)?	Yes
Additional Comments	The source repository includes example config files that largely fulfil the purpose of example data. The only potential difficulty with these files is that they will only work with the authors' local AWS setup. I cannot think of a way that this could be avoided, however: execution of the scripts inevitably requires the accompanying AWS account setup and config.
Are there (ideally real world) examples demonstrating use of the software?	Yes
Additional Comments	The use of the software is fully described within the accompanying tutorial.
Is automated testing used or are there manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?	No
Additional Comments	I suspect it would be difficult to create meaningful automated tests for these scripts, as they rely on interacting with the Amazon Web Services API to run.
Any Additional Overall Comments to the Author	I was delighted to receive this paper for review: the authors are describing automation of a process we have been handling manually for several years. The documentation accompanying the scripts is excellent: it is detailed, easy to follow, and comprehensive. I strongly recommend creating clearer links to that tutorial from the software repository on GitHub. Unfortunately, I was unable to test the complete workflow of the scripts as I could not access an AWS environment configured to the exact specifications described by the Cloud-SPAN team. If the authors are willing to adjust the scripts to be more permissive of alternative configurations (e.g. dropping the hard requirement for a subdomain where the instances could be hosted), I would be more than happy to review the new version. Thank you very much for writing the scripts, the documentation, and the paper -- and even more thanks for doing it all in the open, maximising the impact your work can have on the wider community.
Recommendation	Minor Revisions