Setting Up Serverless Framework With AWS
Here's how to install the Serverless Framework, set up a project and deploy it to Amazon Web Services on serverless infrastructure like AWS Lambda, AWS DynamoDB, AWS S3 and more.
Installation
Install the Serverless Framework via NPM
First, you must have the Node.js runtime installed, then you can install the Serverless Framework via NPM.
Open your CLI and run the command below to install the Serverless Framework globally.
npm i serverless -g
Run serverless to verify your installation is working, and show the current version.
Update Serverless Framework
As of version 4, the Serverless Framework automatically updates itself and performs a check to do so every 24 hours.
You can force an update by running this command:
serverless update
Or, you can set this environment variable:
SERVERLESS_FRAMEWORK_FORCE_UPDATE=true
Pinning to a Specific Version
You are able to pin to a specific version of the Serverless Framework using normal semver syntax, by setting the frameworkVersion property in your serverless.yml file. If you do not set this property, then every 24 hours you will be automatically updated to the latest version of the Serverless Framework. If you do set this property, you will be updated every 24 hours to the highest version that is currently available for the version constraint you have set.
For example, If you set frameworkVersion: ~4.1.0 then you will always be updated to the most recent patch version of 4.1.x.
We highly recommend that you never pin to a specific patch version and instead pin to a specific major or minor version. This way you will always benefit from patch updates that may include security and bug fixes.
We periodically will block versions that are found to contain regressions, security issues, or other issues that impact stability for our users. If you are pinning to a version that is found to be broken, we will update you to the next closest patch version that is not blocked.
Blocked Versions
Currently, the following versions are blocked,
- Versions older than
4.0.4 - Version
4.1.8 - Versions
4.1.13to4.1.15
The serverless Command
The Serverless Framework ships with a serverless command that walks you through getting a project created and deployed onto AWS. It helps with downloading a Template, setting up AWS Credentials, setting up the Serverless Framework Dashboard, and more, while explaining each concept along the way.
This guide will also walk you through getting started with the Serverless Framework, but please note, simply typing the serverless command may be the superior experience.
serverless
Create A Service
The primary concept for a project in the Serverless Framework is known as a "Service", and its declared by a serverless.yml file, which contains simplified syntax for deploying cloud infrastructure, such as AWS Lambda functions, infrastructure that triggers those functions with events, and additional infrastructure your AWS Lambda functions may need for various use-cases (e.g. AWS DynamoDB database tables, AWS S3 storage buckets, AWS API Gateways for recieving HTTP requests and forwarding them to AWS Lambda).
A Service can either be an entire application, logic for a specific domain (e.g. "blog", "users", "products"), or a microservice handling one task. You decide how to organize your project. Generally, we recommend starting with a monolithic approach to everything to reduce complexity, until breaking up logic is absolutely necessary.
To create and fully set up a Serverless Framework Service, use the serverless command, which offers an interactive set-up workflow.
serverless
This will show you several Templates. Choose one that fits the language and use-case you want.
Serverless ϟ Framework
Welcome to Serverless Framework V.4
Create a new project by selecting a Template to generate scaffolding for a specific use-case.
? Select A Template: …
❯ AWS / Node.js / Starter
AWS / Node.js / HTTP API
AWS / Node.js / Scheduled Task
AWS / Node.js / SQS Worker
AWS / Node.js / Express API
AWS / Node.js / Express API with DynamoDB
AWS / Python / Starter
AWS / Python / HTTP API
AWS / Python / Scheduled Task
AWS / Python / SQS Worker
AWS / Python / Flask API
AWS / Python / Flask API with DynamoDB
(Scroll for more)
After selecting a Service Template, its files will be downloaded and you will have the opportunity to give your Service a name.
? Name Your Service: ›
Please use only lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens. Also, keep Service names short, since they are added into the name of each cloud resource the Serverless Framework creates, and some cloud resources have character length restrictions in their names.
Learn more about Services and more in the Core Concepts documentation.
Signing In
As of Serverless Framework V.4, if you are using the serverless command to set up a Service, it will eventually ask you to log in.
If you need to log in outside of that, run serverless login.
Logging in will redirect you to the Serverless Framework Dashboard within your browser. After registering or logging in, go back to your CLI and you will be signed in.
Please note, you can get up and running with the Serverless Framework CLI and Dashboard for free, and the CLI will always be free for small orgs and indiehackers. For more information on pricing, check out our pricing page.
Creating An App
The "App" concept is a parent container for one or many "Services" which you can optionally set via the app property in your serverless.yml. Setting an app also enables Serverless Framework Dashboard features for that Service, like tracking your Services and their deployments in Serverless Framework Dashboard, enabling sharing outputs between them, sharing secrets between them, and enabling metrics, traces and logs.
If you are using the serverless onboarding command, it will help you set up an app and add it to your Service. You can use the serverless command to create an App on an existing Service as well, or create an App in the Dashboard.
❯ Create A New App
ecommerce
blog
acmeinc
Skip Adding An App
The app can also be set manually in serverless.yml via the app property:
service: my-service
app: my-app
If you don't want to use the Serverless Framework Dashboard's features, simply don't add an app property. Apps are not required.
Setting Up AWS Credentials
To deploy cloud infrastructure to AWS, you must give the Serverless Framework access to your AWS credentials.
Running the Serverless Framework's serverless command in a new or existing Service will help identify if AWS credentials have been set correctly or if they are expired, or help you set them up from scratch.
No valid AWS Credentials were found in your environment variables or on your machine. Serverless Framework needs these to access your AWS account and deploy resources to it. Choose an option below to set up AWS Credentials.
❯ Sign in with AWS Console (Recommended)
Save AWS Credentials in a Local Profile
Skip & Set Later (AWS SSO, ENV Vars)
If you are using Serverless Dashboard, you will see a "Create AWS IAM Role (Easy & Recommended)" option at the top of this list. We recommend using this option as it stores your AWS IAM Role in the Serverless Framework Dashboard, enabling you to share it with your team and securely eliminating the need to keep credentials on local machines.
For all other users, we recommend using Sign in with AWS Console which uses browser-based authentication to generate short-lived credentials. This is more secure than long-term access keys and integrates with your existing AWS Console sign-in. You can also run this directly with serverless login aws.
If you are using AWS SSO (IAM Identity Center), you can select "Skip & Set Later" and configure SSO using aws configure sso, then run serverless login aws sso to authenticate.
To learn more about setting up your AWS Credentials, read this guide.
Deploy A Service
After you've used the serverless command to set up everything, it's time to deploy your Service to AWS.
Make sure your terminal session is within the directory that contains your serverless.yml file. If you just created a Service, don't forget to cd into it.
cd [your-new-service-name]
Deploying will create/update cloud infrastructure and code on AWS, all at the same time.
Run the deploy command:
serverless deploy
More details on deploying can be found here.
Developing
Many Serverless Framework and serverless developers generally choose to develop on the cloud, since it matches reality (i.e. your production environment), and emulating Lambda and other infrastructure dependencies locally can be complex.
In Serverless Framework V.4, we've created a hybrid approach to development, to help developers develop rapidly with the accuracy of the real cloud environment. This is the new dev command:
serverless dev
When you run this command, the following happens...
An AWS Cloudformation deployment will happen to slightly modify all of the AWS Lambda functions within your Service so that they include a lightweight wrapper.
Once this AWS Cloudformation deployment has completed, your live AWS Lambda functions within your Service will still be able to receive events and be invoked within AWS.
However, the events will be securely and instantly proxied down to your machine, and the code on your machine which will be run, rather than the code within your live AWS Lambda functions.
This allows you to make changes to your code, without having to deploy or recreate every aspect of your architecture locally, allowing you to develop rapidly.
Logs from your local code will also be shown within your terminal dev session.
Once your code has finished, the response from your local code will be forwarded back up to your live AWS Lambda functions, and they will return the response—just like a normal AWS Lambda function in the cloud would.
Please note, dev is only designed for development or personal stages/environments and should not be run in production or any stage where a high volume of events are being processed.
Once you are finished with your dev session, you MUST re-deploy, using serverless deploy to push your recent local changes back to your live AWS Lambda functions—or your AWS Lambda functions will fail(!)
More details on dev mode can be found here.
Invoking
To invoke your AWS Lambda function on the cloud, you can find URLs for your functions w/ API endpoints in the serverless deploy output, or retrieve them via serverless info. If your functions do not have API endpoints, you can use the invoke command, like this:
sls invoke -f hello
# Invoke and display logs:
serverless invoke -f hello --log
More details on the invoke command can be found here.
Deploy Functions
To deploy code changes quickly, you can skip the serverless deploy command which is much slower since it triggers a full AWS CloudFormation update, and deploy only code and configuration changes to a specific AWS Lambda function.
To deploy code and configuration changes to individual AWS Lambda functions in seconds, use the deploy function command, with -f [function name in serverless.yml] set to the function you want to deploy.
serverless deploy function -f my-api
More details on the deploy function command can be found here.
Streaming Logs
You can use Serverless Framework to stream logs from AWS Cloudwatch directly to your terminal. Use the sls logs command in a separate terminal window:
sls logs -f [Function name in serverless.yml] -t
Target a specific function via the -f option and enable tailing (i.e. streaming) via the -t option.
Full Local Development
Many Serverless Framework users choose to emulate their entire serverless architecture locally. Please note, emulating AWS Lambda and other cloud services is never accurate and the process can be complex, especially as your project and teammates grow. As of V.4, we highly recommend using the new dev mode with personal stages.
If you do choose to develop locally, we recommend the following workflow...
Use the invoke local command to invoke your function locally:
sls invoke local -f my-api
You can also pass data to this local invocation via a variety of ways. Here's one of them:
sls invoke local --function functionName --data '{"a":"bar"}'
More details on the invoke local command can be found here
Serverless Framework also has a great plugin that allows you to run a server locally and emulate AWS API Gateway. This is the serverless-offline command.
More details on the serverless-offline plugins command can be found here
Use Plugins
A big benefit of Serverless Framework is within its Plugin ecosystem.
Plugins extend or overwrite the Serverless Framework, giving it new use-cases or capabilites, and there are hundreds of them.
Some of the most common Plugins are:
- Serverless Offline - Emulate AWS Lambda and API Gateway locally when developing your Serverless project.
- Serverless Domain Manager - Manage custom domains with AWS API Gateways.
- Serverless Step Functions - Build AWS Step Functions architectures.
- Serverless Python Requirements - Bundle dependencies from requirements.txt and make them available in your PYTHONPATH.
Remove Your Service
If you want to delete your service, run remove. This will delete all the AWS resources created by your project and ensure that you don't incur any unexpected charges. It will also remove the service from Serverless Dashboard.
serverless remove
More details on the remove command can be found here.
What's Next
Here are some helpful resources for continuing with the Serverless Framework: