02-build-and-deploy-a-sample-aws-cloud-development-kit-stack-to-aws.md

Build and deploy a sample AWS Cloud Development Kit stack to AWS

📹 Video

Although many files have been installed when we initialized a new cdk project, we'll only touch two of those files (and we'll create some new files too):

1. the .ts file found in the bin directory (todo-app.ts for Tomasz). This is the app's entry point (kind of like index.js in your standard reactJS application)

2. the .ts file found in lib directory (todo-app-stack.ts for Tomasz). This is where our stack is defined and where we will write most of our code (Similar to app.js in your typical ReactJS application).

👍 I will refer to the second file as the stack file.

At the top of the stack file, you'll find several imports.

import * as sns from '@aws-cdk/aws-sns';

This is the core cdk library that every stack file needs. We'll be deleting the rest of the imports shortly, mainly:

• SNS or (Amazon Simple Notification Service)

• SQS or (Amazon Simple Queue Service)

These imports are an example of constructs. In aws constructs are the basic building blocks of AWS CDK apps. A construct can be a single resource, or it can be a higher-level component that has multiple resources. Constructs can be published to npm and you can import constructs by other users to your own code.

We'll use typescript, so let's start the typescript compiler to watch for any errors.

• Run npm run watch

👍 Note, you should have the compiler running every time you work on the cdk project (it will save you a lot of time that you would otherwise spend chasing errors/warnings!)

• Then open a new terminal window/tab and run: cdk diff

👍 Similar to git diff, this will give you a preview of you what you'll be deploying.

👍 Side note: if you haven't used aws before (like me!), you will get this error message: Unable to resolve AWS account to use. It must be either configured when you define your CDK or through the environment.

Don't panic, Tomasz created a video to help you set up, and I've added notes on that in the 00-Intro and Welcome section of the notes.

Running cdk diff for the first time will produce a list of things to be deployed. The most important changes can be found under Resources.

Resources
[+] AWS::SQS::Queue TodoAppQueue TodoAppQueueF04C191C
[+] AWS::SQS::QueuePolicy TodoAppQueue/Policy TodoAppQueuePolicy77BA4F8B
[+] AWS::SNS::Subscription TodoAppQueue/TodoAppStackTodoAppTopic0382DBE7 TodoAppQueueTodoAppStackTodoAppTopic0382DBE791B1BFB6
[+] AWS::SNS::Topic TodoAppTopic T

To deploy run:

• cdk deploy

👍 Every time we're making potentially sensitive changes, we'll be asked to confirm that we are ready to deploy. Hit y to agree.