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Introduction

Let's discover aws-cdk-lib-util in less than 5 minutes.

Getting Started​

Get started by adding the lib as a dependency.

npm install aws-cdk-lib-util

Importing​

import { CDKCustomResourceUtil, SSMUtil, etc... } from 'aws-cdk-lib-util';

What you'll need​

  • Node.js:

    • When installing Node.js, you are recommended to check all checkboxes related to dependencies.

  • Yarn (Optional)

Description​

Utility library for writing AWS CDK code in Typescript or NodeJS that provides several benefits:

  1. Built-in guidelines/best practices to maintaining clear structure to your AWS Cloudformation resources in usage and naming convention.
  2. Cleanup your CDK stack by reducing lines of code needed to add or import select resource types.

Most utility functions force adherence to naming convetion of type: projectName-component identifier-stack environment such as MyProject-Lambda-API-DEV

This enforcement starts from requiring projectName prefix and stackEnv suffix for most components, but it also extends for some to more advanced requirements.

I found these naming conventions to greatly improve the navigation and comprehension of the resource available, as we all know, a consistent naming convention reduces the mental load and speeds up our comprehension and processing of what resources are deployed and how they interconnect.

Parameter naming​

In multiple utilities I make use of SSM parameters. Parameters created by this library take the shape of

/projectname/<provided_parameter_name>/stackenv

It is recommended for the <provided_parameter_name to be a hierarchical naming that makes sense for the parameter such as

/vpc/sg/id/api/

which would give the full parameter of

/projectname/vpc/sg/id/api/dev

making it quite easy to read and search for in SSM.

Furthermore, to accommodate for situation where a parameter is from a different project, the utility behaves different according to the <provided_parameter_name first character.

If the first char is /, it assumes a different project and uses the paramName value only appending stackEnv at the end

Example:

  1. /someProjectName/vpc/sg/id/api becomes /someProjectName/vpc/sg/id/api/dev
  2. vpc/sg/id/api becomes /projectName/vpc/sg/id/api/dev