diff --git a/include/aws/common/command_line_parser.h b/include/aws/common/command_line_parser.h
index 0f7523c8a..2a2207b8f 100644
--- a/include/aws/common/command_line_parser.h
+++ b/include/aws/common/command_line_parser.h
@@ -82,6 +82,11 @@ AWS_COMMON_API int aws_cli_getopt_long(
  */
 AWS_COMMON_API void aws_cli_reset_state(void);
 
+/*
+ * Returns the aws_cli_optarg variable
+ */
+AWS_COMMON_API const char *aws_get_cli_optarg(void);
+
 /**
  * Dispatches the current command line arguments with a subcommand from the second input argument in argv[], if
  * dispatch table contains a command that matches the argument. When the command is dispatched, argc and argv will be
diff --git a/source/command_line_parser.c b/source/command_line_parser.c
index 0699e7fbb..ed6100836 100644
--- a/source/command_line_parser.c
+++ b/source/command_line_parser.c
@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@ bool aws_cli_on_arg = false;
 const char *aws_cli_optarg = NULL;
 const char *aws_cli_positional_arg = NULL;
 
+const char *aws_get_cli_optarg(void) {
+    return aws_cli_optarg;
+}
+
 static const struct aws_cli_option *s_find_option_from_char(
     const struct aws_cli_option *longopts,
     char search_for,