TypeScript Meets the Cloud: Using AWS CDK

The AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) is an open-source software development framework that allows developers to define cloud infrastructure in code. It provides a high-level object-oriented abstraction over AWS CloudFormation, which simplifies the process of defining, deploying, and managing infrastructure resources in AWS. In this blog post, we will introduce the AWS CDK and explain how to use it with TypeScript.

To follow along with this blog post and deploy AWS CDK, you will need the following prerequisites:

• An AWS account
• AWS CLI installed and configured on your local machine
• Node.js and npm installed on your local machine
• Basic knowledge of TypeScript and AWS CloudFormation

What is AWS CDK?

AWS CDK is a framework that allows developers to define AWS infrastructure as code using familiar programming languages such as TypeScript, Python, Java, and C#. With AWS CDK, developers can define infrastructure resources in a declarative, object-oriented manner, which makes it easier to manage and deploy complex cloud infrastructure.

AWS CDK provides a set of reusable, composable constructs called AWS CloudFormation Constructs that encapsulate common infrastructure patterns and best practices. AWS CDK uses these constructs to generate CloudFormation templates, which can be deployed to AWS.

AWS CDK comes with a command-line interface (CLI) that helps developers to initialize, generate, deploy, and manage their infrastructure resources. The CLI also supports common development workflows, such as creating a new project, building, testing, and deploying applications.

Why use AWS CDK with TypeScript?

TypeScript is a statically typed superset of JavaScript that provides additional language features such as type annotations, interfaces, and classes. TypeScript helps developers to write more robust, maintainable, and scalable code by catching errors at compile-time rather than runtime.

AWS CDK integrates seamlessly with TypeScript and provides type definitions for all its constructs and APIs. This allows developers to write more concise and readable code and helps to prevent common mistakes when defining infrastructure resources.

Getting Started with AWS CDK and TypeScript

To get started with AWS CDK and TypeScript, we need to install the AWS CDK CLI and create a new project. We can install the AWS CDK CLI globally using npm.

npm install -g aws-cdk

Next, we can create a new AWS CDK project using the CLI.

cdk init app --language=typescript

This will create a new TypeScript project with the following directory structure:

cdk/
|-- bin/
|   `-- cdk.ts
|-- lib/
|   `-- cdk-stack.ts
|-- test/
|   `-- cdk.test.ts
|-- .gitignore
|-- cdk.json
|-- package.json
|-- README.md
|-- tsconfig.json
|-- tslint.json

The lib/cdk-stack.ts file is where we define our infrastructure resources using AWS CDK constructs. We can define our infrastructure resources in a declarative manner using TypeScript classes and methods.

For example, let’s define an Amazon S3 bucket using the aws-s3 construct:

import * as cdk from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import * as s3 from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-s3';
import { Construct } from 'constructs';

export class MyStack extends cdk.Stack {
  constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props?: cdk.StackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

    new s3.Bucket(this, 'MyBucket', {
      versioned: true,
    });
  }
}

In this example, we import the necessary AWS CDK modules and create a new s3.Bucket construct, which creates a new Amazon S3 bucket with versioning enabled. We pass the this object as the first argument, which refers to the current stack, and a unique identifier as the second argument.

We can now build, test, and deploy our infrastructure resources using the AWS CDK CLI.

Deploying AWS CDK

To deploy AWS CDK, we first need to bootstrap our AWS environment. Bootstraping involves creating various resources to facilitate deployments and a new AWS CloudFormation stack that AWS CDK will use to store and manage its deployment artifacts.

Bootstrap AWS CDK

Once we have installed the AWS CLI, we can bootstrap AWS CDK by running the following command:

cdk bootstrap

Note: Running bootstrap more than once on a specific AWS Account & region has no effect.

Deploy Infrastructure Resources

After defining our infrastructure resources, we can deploy them using the AWS CDK CLI. To deploy our resources, run the following command:

cdk deploy

This command will build, package, and deploy our infrastructure resources to AWS.

As part of the deployment, you should see the creation of your S3 Bucket.

Housekeeping

Once you’ve deployed everything, use the following command to destroy any deployed resources to avoid any unwanted cost:

cdk destroy

Conclusion

In this blog post, we introduced the AWS CDK and explained how to use it with TypeScript to define and manage cloud infrastructure in code. We also demonstrated how to deploy AWS CDK by bootstrapping an AWS environment, creating a new AWS CDK project, defining infrastructure resources using AWS CDK constructs, and deploying them using the AWS CDK CLI.

AWS CDK and TypeScript provide a powerful combination for defining and managing cloud infrastructure, and I recommend you give it a try for your next cloud project.