diff --git a/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.lock b/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.lock
--- a/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.lock
+++ b/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.lock
@@ -971,7 +971,6 @@
  "aws-config",
  "aws-sdk-dynamodb",
  "aws-sdk-secretsmanager",
- "aws-types",
  "base64 0.21.0",
  "bytes",
  "chrono",
diff --git a/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.toml b/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.toml
--- a/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.toml
+++ b/shared/comm-lib/Cargo.toml
@@ -22,12 +22,7 @@
   "dep:actix-web-httpauth",
 ]
 crypto = ["dep:aead", "dep:aes-gcm", "dep:bytes"]
-aws = [
-  "dep:aws-config",
-  "dep:aws-sdk-dynamodb",
-  "dep:aws-sdk-secretsmanager",
-  "dep:aws-types",
-]
+aws = ["dep:aws-config", "dep:aws-sdk-dynamodb", "dep:aws-sdk-secretsmanager"]
 
 [dependencies]
 serde = { version = "1.0", features = ["derive"] }
@@ -45,7 +40,6 @@
 aws-config = { version = "0.55", optional = true }
 aws-sdk-dynamodb = { version = "0.27", optional = true }
 aws-sdk-secretsmanager = { version = "0.27", optional = true }
-aws-types = { version = "0.55", optional = true }
 # blob client dependencies
 bytes = { version = "1.4", optional = true }
 futures-core = { version = "0.3", optional = true }
diff --git a/shared/comm-lib/src/lib.rs b/shared/comm-lib/src/lib.rs
--- a/shared/comm-lib/src/lib.rs
+++ b/shared/comm-lib/src/lib.rs
@@ -16,5 +16,17 @@
 
   #[cfg(feature = "http")]
   pub use {actix_web, http};
+
+  #[cfg(feature = "aws")]
+  pub mod aws {
+    pub use aws_config as config;
+    pub use aws_sdk_dynamodb as ddb;
+    pub use aws_sdk_secretsmanager as secretsmanager;
+
+    // commonly used types
+    pub use config::SdkConfig as AwsConfig;
+    pub use ddb::Client as DynamoDBClient;
+    pub use ddb::Error as DynamoDBError;
+  }
 }
 pub use reexports::*;