aws-cdk-lib

What is aws-cdk-lib?

The aws-cdk-lib package is the primary library for the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), which is a software development framework for defining cloud infrastructure in code and provisioning it through AWS CloudFormation. It provides high-level components called constructs that preconfigure cloud resources with sensible defaults, making it easier to build cloud applications.

What are aws-cdk-lib's main functionalities?

Defining Infrastructure

This feature allows you to define AWS infrastructure using high-level constructs. In the code sample, a new S3 bucket is defined within a stack.

const app = new cdk.App();
const stack = new cdk.Stack(app, 'MyFirstStack');
new s3.Bucket(stack, 'MyFirstBucket', {
  removalPolicy: cdk.RemovalPolicy.DESTROY,
});

Configuring IAM Policies

This feature enables the creation and configuration of IAM roles and policies. The code sample creates an IAM role and grants it permissions to perform all actions on S3 resources.

const role = new iam.Role(stack, 'MyRole', {
  assumedBy: new iam.ServicePrincipal('lambda.amazonaws.com'),
});
role.addToPolicy(new iam.PolicyStatement({
  actions: ['s3:*'],
  resources: ['*'],
}));

Creating Serverless Functions

This feature is used to define AWS Lambda functions. The code sample shows how to create a new Lambda function with Node.js runtime and specifies the source code directory.

new lambda.Function(stack, 'MyFunction', {
  runtime: lambda.Runtime.NODEJS_14_X,
  handler: 'index.handler',
  code: lambda.Code.fromAsset('lambda'),
});

Setting up API Gateway

This feature allows you to set up an API Gateway to create RESTful APIs. The code sample demonstrates how to create an API Gateway and integrate it with a Lambda function.

const api = new apigateway.RestApi(stack, 'MyApi', {
  restApiName: 'My Service',
});
const getWidgetsIntegration = new apigateway.LambdaIntegration(myLambdaFunction);
api.root.addMethod('GET', getWidgetsIntegration);

Other packages similar to aws-cdk-lib

serverless

The Serverless Framework is an open-source CLI for building and deploying serverless applications. It offers a similar experience to AWS CDK but is cloud-agnostic, supporting multiple cloud providers. It uses a configuration file to define the services and resources.

terraform

Terraform by HashiCorp is an infrastructure as code tool that allows you to define both cloud and on-premises resources with a declarative configuration language. It is also cloud-agnostic and uses its own state management for keeping track of the infrastructure.

pulumi

Pulumi is an infrastructure as code tool that allows you to define infrastructure using general-purpose programming languages such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Go, and .NET. It supports multiple cloud providers and offers a more developer-centric experience compared to AWS CDK.

README

AWS Cloud Development Kit Library

The AWS CDK construct library provides APIs to define your CDK application and add CDK constructs to the application.

Usage

Upgrade from CDK 1.x

When upgrading from CDK 1.x, remove all dependencies to individual CDK packages from your dependencies file and follow the rest of the sections.

Installation

To use this package, you need to declare this package and the constructs package as dependencies.

According to the kind of project you are developing:

• For projects that are CDK libraries, declare them both under the devDependencies and peerDependencies sections.
• For CDK apps, declare them under the dependencies section only.

Use in your code

Classic import

You can use a classic import to get access to each service namespaces:

import { Stack, App, aws_s3 as s3 } from 'aws-cdk-lib';

const app = new App();
const stack = new Stack(app, 'TestStack');

new s3.Bucket(stack, 'TestBucket');

Barrel import

Alternatively, you can use "barrel" imports:

import { App, Stack } from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import { Bucket } from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-s3';

const app = new App();
const stack = new Stack(app, 'TestStack');

new Bucket(stack, 'TestBucket');

Stacks and Stages

A Stack is the smallest physical unit of deployment, and maps directly onto a CloudFormation Stack. You define a Stack by defining a subclass of Stack -- let's call it MyStack -- and instantiating the constructs that make up your application in MyStack's constructor. You then instantiate this stack one or more times to define different instances of your application. For example, you can instantiate it once using few and cheap EC2 instances for testing, and once again using more and bigger EC2 instances for production.

When your application grows, you may decide that it makes more sense to split it out across multiple Stack classes. This can happen for a number of reasons:

• You could be starting to reach the maximum number of resources allowed in a single stack (this is currently 500).
• You could decide you want to separate out stateful resources and stateless resources into separate stacks, so that it becomes easy to tear down and recreate the stacks that don't have stateful resources.
• There could be a single stack with resources (like a VPC) that are shared between multiple instances of other stacks containing your applications.

As soon as your conceptual application starts to encompass multiple stacks, it is convenient to wrap them in another construct that represents your logical application. You can then treat that new unit the same way you used to be able to treat a single stack: by instantiating it multiple times for different instances of your application.

You can define a custom subclass of Stage, holding one or more Stacks, to represent a single logical instance of your application.

As a final note: Stacks are not a unit of reuse. They describe physical deployment layouts, and as such are best left to application builders to organize their deployments with. If you want to vend a reusable construct, define it as a subclasses of Construct: the consumers of your construct will decide where to place it in their own stacks.

Stack Synthesizers

Each Stack has a synthesizer, an object that determines how and where the Stack should be synthesized and deployed. The synthesizer controls aspects like:

• How does the stack reference assets? (Either through CloudFormation parameters the CLI supplies, or because the Stack knows a predefined location where assets will be uploaded).
• What roles are used to deploy the stack? These can be bootstrapped roles, roles created in some other way, or just the CLI's current credentials.

The following synthesizers are available:

• DefaultStackSynthesizer: recommended. Uses predefined asset locations and roles created by the modern bootstrap template. Access control is done by controlling who can assume the deploy role. This is the default stack synthesizer in CDKv2.
• LegacyStackSynthesizer: Uses CloudFormation parameters to communicate asset locations, and the CLI's current permissions to deploy stacks. The is the default stack synthesizer in CDKv1.
• CliCredentialsStackSynthesizer: Uses predefined asset locations, and the CLI's current permissions.

Each of these synthesizers takes configuration arguments. To configure a stack with a synthesizer, pass it as one of its properties:

new MyStack(app, 'MyStack', {
  synthesizer: new DefaultStackSynthesizer({
    fileAssetsBucketName: 'my-orgs-asset-bucket',
  }),
});

For more information on bootstrapping accounts and customizing synthesis, see Bootstrapping in the CDK Developer Guide.

Nested Stacks

Nested stacks are stacks created as part of other stacks. You create a nested stack within another stack by using the NestedStack construct.

As your infrastructure grows, common patterns can emerge in which you declare the same components in multiple templates. You can separate out these common components and create dedicated templates for them. Then use the resource in your template to reference other templates, creating nested stacks.

For example, assume that you have a load balancer configuration that you use for most of your stacks. Instead of copying and pasting the same configurations into your templates, you can create a dedicated template for the load balancer. Then, you just use the resource to reference that template from within other templates.

The following example will define a single top-level stack that contains two nested stacks: each one with a single Amazon S3 bucket:

class MyNestedStack extends cfn.NestedStack {
  constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props?: cfn.NestedStackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

    new s3.Bucket(this, 'NestedBucket');
  }
}

class MyParentStack extends Stack {
  constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props?: StackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

    new MyNestedStack(this, 'Nested1');
    new MyNestedStack(this, 'Nested2');
  }
}

Resources references across nested/parent boundaries (even with multiple levels of nesting) will be wired by the AWS CDK through CloudFormation parameters and outputs. When a resource from a parent stack is referenced by a nested stack, a CloudFormation parameter will automatically be added to the nested stack and assigned from the parent; when a resource from a nested stack is referenced by a parent stack, a CloudFormation output will be automatically be added to the nested stack and referenced using Fn::GetAtt "Outputs.Xxx" from the parent.

Nested stacks also support the use of Docker image and file assets.

Accessing resources in a different stack

You can access resources in a different stack, as long as they are in the same account and AWS Region. The following example defines the stack stack1, which defines an Amazon S3 bucket. Then it defines a second stack, stack2, which takes the bucket from stack1 as a constructor property.

const prod = { account: '123456789012', region: 'us-east-1' };

const stack1 = new StackThatProvidesABucket(app, 'Stack1' , { env: prod });

// stack2 will take a property { bucket: IBucket }
const stack2 = new StackThatExpectsABucket(app, 'Stack2', {
  bucket: stack1.bucket,
  env: prod
});

If the AWS CDK determines that the resource is in the same account and Region, but in a different stack, it automatically synthesizes AWS CloudFormation Exports in the producing stack and an Fn::ImportValue in the consuming stack to transfer that information from one stack to the other.

Removing automatic cross-stack references

The automatic references created by CDK when you use resources across stacks are convenient, but may block your deployments if you want to remove the resources that are referenced in this way. You will see an error like:

Export Stack1:ExportsOutputFnGetAtt-****** cannot be deleted as it is in use by Stack1

Let's say there is a Bucket in the stack1, and the stack2 references its bucket.bucketName. You now want to remove the bucket and run into the error above.

It's not safe to remove stack1.bucket while stack2 is still using it, so unblocking yourself from this is a two-step process. This is how it works:

DEPLOYMENT 1: break the relationship

• Make sure stack2 no longer references bucket.bucketName (maybe the consumer stack now uses its own bucket, or it writes to an AWS DynamoDB table, or maybe you just remove the Lambda Function altogether).
• In the stack1 class, call this.exportValue(this.bucket.bucketName). This will make sure the CloudFormation Export continues to exist while the relationship between the two stacks is being broken.
• Deploy (this will effectively only change the stack2, but it's safe to deploy both).

DEPLOYMENT 2: remove the resource

• You are now free to remove the bucket resource from stack1.
• Don't forget to remove the exportValue() call as well.
• Deploy again (this time only the stack1 will be changed -- the bucket will be deleted).

Durations

To make specifications of time intervals unambiguous, a single class called Duration is used throughout the AWS Construct Library by all constructs that that take a time interval as a parameter (be it for a timeout, a rate, or something else).

An instance of Duration is constructed by using one of the static factory methods on it:

Duration.seconds(300)   // 5 minutes
Duration.minutes(5)     // 5 minutes
Duration.hours(1)       // 1 hour
Duration.days(7)        // 7 days
Duration.parse('PT5M')  // 5 minutes

Durations can be added or subtracted together:

Duration.minutes(1).plus(Duration.seconds(60)); // 2 minutes
Duration.minutes(5).minus(Duration.seconds(10)); // 290 secondes

Size (Digital Information Quantity)

To make specification of digital storage quantities unambiguous, a class called Size is available.

An instance of Size is initialized through one of its static factory methods:

Size.kibibytes(200) // 200 KiB
Size.mebibytes(5)   // 5 MiB
Size.gibibytes(40)  // 40 GiB
Size.tebibytes(200) // 200 TiB
Size.pebibytes(3)   // 3 PiB

Instances of Size created with one of the units can be converted into others. By default, conversion to a higher unit will fail if the conversion does not produce a whole number. This can be overridden by unsetting integral property.

Size.mebibytes(2).toKibibytes()                                             // yields 2048
Size.kibibytes(2050).toMebibytes({ rounding: SizeRoundingBehavior.FLOOR })  // yields 2

Secrets

To help avoid accidental storage of secrets as plain text, we use the SecretValue type to represent secrets. Any construct that takes a value that should be a secret (such as a password or an access key) will take a parameter of type SecretValue.

The best practice is to store secrets in AWS Secrets Manager and reference them using SecretValue.secretsManager:

const secret = SecretValue.secretsManager('secretId', {
  jsonField: 'password', // optional: key of a JSON field to retrieve (defaults to all content),
  versionId: 'id',       // optional: id of the version (default AWSCURRENT)
  versionStage: 'stage', // optional: version stage name (default AWSCURRENT)
});

Using AWS Secrets Manager is the recommended way to reference secrets in a CDK app. SecretValue also supports the following secret sources:

• SecretValue.unsafePlainText(secret): stores the secret as plain text in your app and the resulting template (not recommended).
• SecretValue.secretsManager(secret): refers to a secret stored in Secrets Manager
• SecretValue.ssmSecure(param, version): refers to a secret stored as a SecureString in the SSM Parameter Store. If you don't specify the exact version, AWS CloudFormation uses the latest version of the parameter.
• SecretValue.cfnParameter(param): refers to a secret passed through a CloudFormation parameter (must have NoEcho: true).
• SecretValue.cfnDynamicReference(dynref): refers to a secret described by a CloudFormation dynamic reference (used by ssmSecure and secretsManager).
• SecretValue.resourceAttribute(attr): refers to a secret returned from a CloudFormation resource creation.

SecretValues should only be passed to constructs that accept properties of type SecretValue. These constructs are written to ensure your secrets will not be exposed where they shouldn't be. If you try to use a SecretValue in a different location, an error about unsafe secret usage will be thrown at synthesis time.

ARN manipulation

Sometimes you will need to put together or pick apart Amazon Resource Names (ARNs). The functions stack.formatArn() and stack.parseArn() exist for this purpose.

formatArn() can be used to build an ARN from components. It will automatically use the region and account of the stack you're calling it on:

declare const stack: Stack;

// Builds "arn:<PARTITION>:lambda:<REGION>:<ACCOUNT>:function:MyFunction"
stack.formatArn({
  service: 'lambda',
  resource: 'function',
  sep: ':',
  resourceName: 'MyFunction'
});

parseArn() can be used to get a single component from an ARN. parseArn() will correctly deal with both literal ARNs and deploy-time values (tokens), but in case of a deploy-time value be aware that the result will be another deploy-time value which cannot be inspected in the CDK application.

declare const stack: Stack;

// Extracts the function name out of an AWS Lambda Function ARN
const arnComponents = stack.parseArn(arn, ':');
const functionName = arnComponents.resourceName;

Note that depending on the service, the resource separator can be either : or /, and the resource name can be either the 6th or 7th component in the ARN. When using these functions, you will need to know the format of the ARN you are dealing with.

For an exhaustive list of ARN formats used in AWS, see AWS ARNs and Namespaces in the AWS General Reference.

Dependencies

Construct Dependencies

Sometimes AWS resources depend on other resources, and the creation of one resource must be completed before the next one can be started.

In general, CloudFormation will correctly infer the dependency relationship between resources based on the property values that are used. In the cases where it doesn't, the AWS Construct Library will add the dependency relationship for you.

If you need to add an ordering dependency that is not automatically inferred, you do so by adding a dependency relationship using constructA.node.addDependency(constructB). This will add a dependency relationship between all resources in the scope of constructA and all resources in the scope of constructB.

If you want a single object to represent a set of constructs that are not necessarily in the same scope, you can use a ConcreteDependable. The following creates a single object that represents a dependency on two constructs, constructB and constructC:

// Declare the dependable object
const bAndC = new ConcreteDependable();
bAndC.add(constructB);
bAndC.add(constructC);

// Take the dependency
constructA.node.addDependency(bAndC);

Stack Dependencies

Two different stack instances can have a dependency on one another. This happens when an resource from one stack is referenced in another stack. In that case, CDK records the cross-stack referencing of resources, automatically produces the right CloudFormation primitives, and adds a dependency between the two stacks. You can also manually add a dependency between two stacks by using the stackA.addDependency(stackB) method.

A stack dependency has the following implications:

• Cyclic dependencies are not allowed, so if stackA is using resources from stackB, the reverse is not possible anymore.
• Stacks with dependencies between them are treated specially by the CDK toolkit:
  • If stackA depends on stackB, running cdk deploy stackA will also automatically deploy stackB.
  • stackB's deployment will be performed before stackA's deployment.

Custom Resources

Custom Resources are CloudFormation resources that are implemented by arbitrary user code. They can do arbitrary lookups or modifications during a CloudFormation deployment.

To define a custom resource, use the CustomResource construct:

new CustomResource(this, 'MyMagicalResource', {
  resourceType: 'Custom::MyCustomResource', // must start with 'Custom::'

  // the resource properties
  properties: {
    Property1: 'foo',
    Property2: 'bar'
  },

  // the ARN of the provider (SNS/Lambda) which handles
  // CREATE, UPDATE or DELETE events for this resource type
  // see next section for details
  serviceToken: 'ARN'
});

Custom Resource Providers

Custom resources are backed by a custom resource provider which can be implemented in one of the following ways. The following table compares the various provider types (ordered from low-level to high-level):

Provider	Compute Type	Error Handling	Submit to CloudFormation	Max Timeout	Language	Footprint
sns.Topic	Self-managed	Manual	Manual	Unlimited	Any	Depends
lambda.Function	AWS Lambda	Manual	Manual	15min	Any	Small
core.CustomResourceProvider	Lambda	Auto	Auto	15min	Node.js	Small
custom-resources.Provider	Lambda	Auto	Auto	Unlimited Async	Any	Large

Legend:

• Compute type: which type of compute can is used to execute the handler.
• Error Handling: whether errors thrown by handler code are automatically trapped and a FAILED response is submitted to CloudFormation. If this is "Manual", developers must take care of trapping errors. Otherwise, events could cause stacks to hang.
• Submit to CloudFormation: whether the framework takes care of submitting SUCCESS/FAILED responses to CloudFormation through the event's response URL.
• Max Timeout: maximum allows/possible timeout.
• Language: which programming languages can be used to implement handlers.
• Footprint: how many resources are used by the provider framework itself.

A NOTE ABOUT SINGLETONS

When defining resources for a custom resource provider, you will likely want to define them as a stack singleton so that only a single instance of the provider is created in your stack and which is used by all custom resources of that type.

Here is a basic pattern for defining stack singletons in the CDK. The following examples ensures that only a single SNS topic is defined:

function getOrCreate(scope: Construct): sns.Topic {
  const stack = Stack.of(scope);
  const uniqueid = 'GloballyUniqueIdForSingleton'; // For example, a UUID from `uuidgen`
  const existing = stack.node.tryFindChild(uniqueid);
  if (existing) {
    return existing as sns.Topic;
  }
  return new sns.Topic(stack, uniqueid);
}

Amazon SNS Topic

Every time a resource event occurs (CREATE/UPDATE/DELETE), an SNS notification is sent to the SNS topic. Users must process these notifications (e.g. through a fleet of worker hosts) and submit success/failure responses to the CloudFormation service.

Set serviceToken to topic.topicArn in order to use this provider:

const topic = new sns.Topic(this, 'MyProvider');

new CustomResource(this, 'MyResource', {
  serviceToken: topic.topicArn
});

AWS Lambda Function

An AWS lambda function is called directly by CloudFormation for all resource events. The handler must take care of explicitly submitting a success/failure response to the CloudFormation service and handle various error cases.

Set serviceToken to lambda.functionArn to use this provider:

const fn = new lambda.Function(this, 'MyProvider', functionProps);

new CustomResource(this, 'MyResource', {
  serviceToken: fn.functionArn,
});

The core.CustomResourceProvider class

The class @aws-cdk/core.CustomResourceProvider offers a basic low-level framework designed to implement simple and slim custom resource providers. It currently only supports Node.js-based user handlers, and it does not have support for asynchronous waiting (handler cannot exceed the 15min lambda timeout).

The provider has a built-in singleton method which uses the resource type as a stack-unique identifier and returns the service token:

const serviceToken = CustomResourceProvider.getOrCreate(this, 'Custom::MyCustomResourceType', {
  codeDirectory: `${__dirname}/my-handler`,
  runtime: CustomResourceProviderRuntime.NODEJS_12_X,
  description: "Lambda function created by the custom resource provider",
});

new CustomResource(this, 'MyResource', {
  resourceType: 'Custom::MyCustomResourceType',
  serviceToken: serviceToken
});

The directory (my-handler in the above example) must include an index.js file. It cannot import external dependencies or files outside this directory. It must export an async function named handler. This function accepts the CloudFormation resource event object and returns an object with the following structure:

exports.handler = async function(event) {
  const id = event.PhysicalResourceId; // only for "Update" and "Delete"
  const props = event.ResourceProperties;
  const oldProps = event.OldResourceProperties; // only for "Update"s

  switch (event.RequestType) {
    case "Create":
      // ...

    case "Update":
      // ...

      // if an error is thrown, a FAILED response will be submitted to CFN
      throw new Error('Failed!');

    case "Delete":
      // ...
  }

  return {
    // (optional) the value resolved from `resource.ref`
    // defaults to "event.PhysicalResourceId" or "event.RequestId"
    PhysicalResourceId: "REF",

    // (optional) calling `resource.getAtt("Att1")` on the custom resource in the CDK app
    // will return the value "BAR".
    Data: {
      Att1: "BAR",
      Att2: "BAZ"
    },

    // (optional) user-visible message
    Reason: "User-visible message",

    // (optional) hides values from the console
    NoEcho: true
  };
}

Here is an complete example of a custom resource that summarizes two numbers:

sum-handler/index.js:

exports.handler = async (e) => {
  return {
    Data: {
      Result: e.ResourceProperties.lhs + e.ResourceProperties.rhs,
    },
  };
};

sum.ts:

import {
  Construct,
  CustomResource,
  CustomResourceProvider,
  CustomResourceProviderRuntime,
  Token,
} from '@aws-cdk/core';

export interface SumProps {
  readonly lhs: number;
  readonly rhs: number;
}

export class Sum extends Construct {
  public readonly result: number;

  constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props: SumProps) {
    super(scope, id);

    const resourceType = 'Custom::Sum';
    const serviceToken = CustomResourceProvider.getOrCreate(this, resourceType, {
      codeDirectory: `${__dirname}/sum-handler`,
      runtime: CustomResourceProviderRuntime.NODEJS_12_X,
    });

    const resource = new CustomResource(this, 'Resource', {
      resourceType: resourceType,
      serviceToken: serviceToken,
      properties: {
        lhs: props.lhs,
        rhs: props.rhs
      }
    });

    this.result = Token.asNumber(resource.getAtt('Result'));
  }
}

Usage will look like this:

const sum = new Sum(this, 'MySum', { lhs: 40, rhs: 2 });
new CfnOutput(this, 'Result', { value: Token.asString(sum.result) });

To access the ARN of the provider's AWS Lambda function role, use the getOrCreateProvider() built-in singleton method:

const provider = CustomResourceProvider.getOrCreateProvider(this, 'Custom::MyCustomResourceType', {
  codeDirectory: `${__dirname}/my-handler`,
  runtime: CustomResourceProviderRuntime.NODEJS_12_X,
});

const roleArn = provider.roleArn;

This role ARN can then be used in resource-based IAM policies.

To add IAM policy statements to this role, use addToRolePolicy():

const provider = CustomResourceProvider.getOrCreateProvider(this, 'Custom::MyCustomResourceType', {
  codeDirectory: `${__dirname}/my-handler`,
  runtime: CustomResourceProviderRuntime.NODEJS_12_X,
});
provider.addToRolePolicy({
  Effect: 'Allow',
  Action: 's3:GetObject',
  Resource: '*',
})

Note that addToRolePolicy() uses direct IAM JSON policy blobs, not a iam.PolicyStatement object like you will see in the rest of the CDK.

The Custom Resource Provider Framework

The @aws-cdk/custom-resources module includes an advanced framework for implementing custom resource providers.

Handlers are implemented as AWS Lambda functions, which means that they can be implemented in any Lambda-supported runtime. Furthermore, this provider has an asynchronous mode, which means that users can provide an isComplete lambda function which is called periodically until the operation is complete. This allows implementing providers that can take up to two hours to stabilize.

Set serviceToken to provider.serviceToken to use this type of provider:

const provider = new customresources.Provider(this, 'MyProvider', {
  onEventHandler,
  isCompleteHandler, // optional async waiter
});

new CustomResource(this, 'MyResource', {
  serviceToken: provider.serviceToken
});

See the documentation for more details.

AWS CloudFormation features

A CDK stack synthesizes to an AWS CloudFormation Template. This section explains how this module allows users to access low-level CloudFormation features when needed.

Stack Outputs

CloudFormation stack outputs and exports are created using the CfnOutput class:

new CfnOutput(this, 'OutputName', {
  value: myBucket.bucketName,
  description: 'The name of an S3 bucket', // Optional
  exportName: 'TheAwesomeBucket', // Registers a CloudFormation export named "TheAwesomeBucket"
});

Parameters

CloudFormation templates support the use of Parameters to customize a template. They enable CloudFormation users to input custom values to a template each time a stack is created or updated. While the CDK design philosophy favors using build-time parameterization, users may need to use CloudFormation in a number of cases (for example, when migrating an existing stack to the AWS CDK).

Template parameters can be added to a stack by using the CfnParameter class:

new CfnParameter(this, 'MyParameter', {
  type: 'Number',
  default: 1337,
  // See the API reference for more configuration props
});

The value of parameters can then be obtained using one of the value methods. As parameters are only resolved at deployment time, the values obtained are placeholder tokens for the real value (Token.isUnresolved() would return true for those):

const param = new CfnParameter(this, 'ParameterName', { /* config */ });

// If the parameter is a String
param.valueAsString;

// If the parameter is a Number
param.valueAsNumber;

// If the parameter is a List
param.valueAsList;

Pseudo Parameters

CloudFormation supports a number of pseudo parameters, which resolve to useful values at deployment time. CloudFormation pseudo parameters can be obtained from static members of the Aws class.

It is generally recommended to access pseudo parameters from the scope's stack instead, which guarantees the values produced are qualifying the designated stack, which is essential in cases where resources are shared cross-stack:

// "this" is the current construct
const stack = Stack.of(this);

stack.account; // Returns the AWS::AccountId for this stack (or the literal value if known)
stack.region;  // Returns the AWS::Region for this stack (or the literal value if known)
stack.partition;

Resource Options

CloudFormation resources can also specify resource attributes. The CfnResource class allows accessing those through the cfnOptions property:

const rawBucket = new s3.CfnBucket(this, 'Bucket', { /* ... */ });
// -or-
const rawBucketAlt = myBucket.node.defaultChild as s3.CfnBucket;

// then
rawBucket.cfnOptions.condition = new CfnCondition(this, 'EnableBucket', { /* ... */ });
rawBucket.cfnOptions.metadata = {
  metadataKey: 'MetadataValue',
};

Resource dependencies (the DependsOn attribute) is modified using the cfnResource.addDependsOn method:

const resourceA = new CfnResource(this, 'ResourceA', resourceProps);
const resourceB = new CfnResource(this, 'ResourceB', resourceProps);

resourceB.addDependsOn(resourceA);

Intrinsic Functions and Condition Expressions

CloudFormation supports intrinsic functions. These functions can be accessed from the Fn class, which provides type-safe methods for each intrinsic function as well as condition expressions:

// To use Fn::Base64
Fn.base64('SGVsbG8gQ0RLIQo=');

// To compose condition expressions:
const environmentParameter = new CfnParameter(this, 'Environment');
Fn.conditionAnd(
  // The "Environment" CloudFormation template parameter evaluates to "Production"
  Fn.conditionEquals('Production', environmentParameter),
  // The AWS::Region pseudo-parameter value is NOT equal to "us-east-1"
  Fn.conditionNot(Fn.conditionEquals('us-east-1', Aws.REGION)),
);

When working with deploy-time values (those for which Token.isUnresolved returns true), idiomatic conditionals from the programming language cannot be used (the value will not be known until deployment time). When conditional logic needs to be expressed with un-resolved values, it is necessary to use CloudFormation conditions by means of the CfnCondition class:

const environmentParameter = new CfnParameter(this, 'Environment');
const isProd = new CfnCondition(this, 'IsProduction', {
  expression: Fn.conditionEquals('Production', environmentParameter),
});

// Configuration value that is a different string based on IsProduction
const stage = Fn.conditionIf(isProd.logicalId, 'Beta', 'Prod').toString();

// Make Bucket creation condition to IsProduction by accessing
// and overriding the CloudFormation resource
const bucket = new s3.Bucket(this, 'Bucket');
const cfnBucket = myBucket.node.defaultChild as s3.CfnBucket;
cfnBucket.cfnOptions.condition = isProd;

Mappings

CloudFormation mappings are created and queried using the CfnMappings class:

const regionTable = new CfnMapping(this, 'RegionTable', {
  mapping: {
    'us-east-1': {
      regionName: 'US East (N. Virginia)',
      // ...
    },
    'us-east-2': {
      regionName: 'US East (Ohio)',
      // ...
    },
    // ...
  }
});

regionTable.findInMap(Aws.REGION, 'regionName')

This will yield the following template:

Mappings:
  RegionTable:
    us-east-1:
      regionName: US East (N. Virginia)
    us-east-2:
      regionName: US East (Ohio)

Mappings can also be synthesized "lazily"; lazy mappings will only render a "Mappings" section in the synthesized CloudFormation template if some findInMap call is unable to immediately return a concrete value due to one or both of the keys being unresolved tokens (some value only available at deploy-time).

For example, the following code will not produce anything in the "Mappings" section. The call to findInMap will be able to resolve the value during synthesis and simply return 'US East (Ohio)'.

const regionTable = new CfnMapping(this, 'RegionTable', {
  mapping: {
    'us-east-1': {
      regionName: 'US East (N. Virginia)',
    },
    'us-east-2': {
      regionName: 'US East (Ohio)',
    },
  },
  lazy: true,
});

regionTable.findInMap('us-east-2', 'regionName');

On the other hand, the following code will produce the "Mappings" section shown above, since the top-level key is an unresolved token. The call to findInMap will return a token that resolves to { "Fn::FindInMap": [ "RegionTable", { "Ref": "AWS::Region" }, "regionName" ] }.

declare const regionTable: CfnMapping;

regionTable.findInMap(Aws.REGION, 'regionName');

Dynamic References

CloudFormation supports dynamically resolving values for SSM parameters (including secure strings) and Secrets Manager. Encoding such references is done using the CfnDynamicReference class:

new CfnDynamicReference(
  CfnDynamicReferenceService.SECRETS_MANAGER,
  'secret-id:secret-string:json-key:version-stage:version-id',
);

Template Options & Transform

CloudFormation templates support a number of options, including which Macros or Transforms to use when deploying the stack. Those can be configured using the stack.templateOptions property:

const stack = new Stack(app, 'StackName');

stack.templateOptions.description = 'This will appear in the AWS console';
stack.templateOptions.transforms = ['AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31'];
stack.templateOptions.metadata = {
  metadataKey: 'MetadataValue',
};

Emitting Raw Resources

The CfnResource class allows emitting arbitrary entries in the Resources section of the CloudFormation template.

new CfnResource(this, 'ResourceId', {
  type: 'AWS::S3::Bucket',
  properties: {
    BucketName: 'bucket-name'
  },
});

As for any other resource, the logical ID in the CloudFormation template will be generated by the AWS CDK, but the type and properties will be copied verbatim in the synthesized template.

Including raw CloudFormation template fragments

When migrating a CloudFormation stack to the AWS CDK, it can be useful to include fragments of an existing template verbatim in the synthesized template. This can be achieved using the CfnInclude class.

new CfnInclude(this, 'ID', {
  template: {
    Resources: {
      Bucket: {
        Type: 'AWS::S3::Bucket',
        Properties: {
          BucketName: 'my-shiny-bucket'
        }
      }
    }
  },
});

Termination Protection

You can prevent a stack from being accidentally deleted by enabling termination protection on the stack. If a user attempts to delete a stack with termination protection enabled, the deletion fails and the stack--including its status--remains unchanged. Enabling or disabling termination protection on a stack sets it for any nested stacks belonging to that stack as well. You can enable termination protection on a stack by setting the terminationProtection prop to true.

const stack = new Stack(app, 'StackName', {
  terminationProtection: true,
});

By default, termination protection is disabled.

CfnJson

CfnJson allows you to postpone the resolution of a JSON blob from deployment-time. This is useful in cases where the CloudFormation JSON template cannot express a certain value.

A common example is to use CfnJson in order to render a JSON map which needs to use intrinsic functions in keys. Since JSON map keys must be strings, it is impossible to use intrinsics in keys and CfnJson can help.

The following example defines an IAM role which can only be assumed by principals that are tagged with a specific tag.

const tagParam = new CfnParameter(this, 'TagName');

const stringEquals = new CfnJson(this, 'ConditionJson', {
  value: {
    [`aws:PrincipalTag/${tagParam.valueAsString}`]: true,
  },
});

const principal = new iam.AccountRootPrincipal().withConditions({
  StringEquals: stringEquals,
});

new iam.Role(this, 'MyRole', { assumedBy: principal });

Explanation: since in this example we pass the tag name through a parameter, it can only be resolved during deployment. The resolved value can be represented in the template through a { "Ref": "TagName" }. However, since we want to use this value inside a aws:PrincipalTag/TAG-NAME IAM operator, we need it in the key of a StringEquals condition. JSON keys must be strings, so to circumvent this limitation, we use CfnJson to "delay" the rendition of this template section to deploy-time. This means that the value of StringEquals in the template will be { "Fn::GetAtt": [ "ConditionJson", "Value" ] }, and will only "expand" to the operator we synthesized during deployment.

Stack Resource Limit

When deploying to AWS CloudFormation, it needs to keep in check the amount of resources being added inside a Stack. Currently it's possible to check the limits in the AWS CloudFormation quotas page.

It's possible to synthesize the project with more Resources than the allowed (or even reduce the number of Resources).

Set the context key @aws-cdk/core:stackResourceLimit with the proper value, being 0 for disable the limit of resources.