serverless

What is serverless?

The serverless npm package is a framework that allows you to build serverless applications using cloud providers like AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, and more. It abstracts away the infrastructure management tasks, enabling developers to focus on writing application logic.

What are serverless's main functionalities?

Deployment Automation

Automates the deployment of your serverless application to the cloud provider. The 'serverless deploy' command packages your application, uploads it to the cloud provider, and sets up the necessary services like AWS Lambda, API Gateway, etc.

serverless deploy

Function Invocation

Allows you to invoke a deployed function directly from the command line. The '-f' flag specifies the function name you want to invoke, in this case, 'hello'.

serverless invoke -f hello

Local Development

Enables local development and testing of serverless applications. The 'serverless offline' plugin simulates AWS Lambda and API Gateway on your local machine to speed up development cycles.

serverless offline start

Logs Retrieval

Retrieves logs for a specific function from the cloud provider. The '-f' flag specifies the function name whose logs you want to view, in this case, 'hello'.

serverless logs -f hello

Configuration Management

Allows you to define your serverless application's configuration in a 'serverless.yml' file. This includes the service name, provider details, runtime, functions, events, and other resources.

service: myService
provider:
  name: aws
  runtime: nodejs12.x
functions:
  hello:
    handler: handler.hello

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README

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The Serverless Framework – Build applications on AWS Lambda and other next-gen cloud services, that auto-scale and only charge you when they run. This lowers the total cost of running and operating your apps, enabling you to build more and manage less.

The Serverless Framework is a command-line tool with an easy and approachable YAML syntax to deploy both your code and cloud infrastructure needed to make tons of serverless application use-cases. It's a multi-language framework that supports Node.js, Typescript, Python, Go, Java, and more. It's also completely extensible via over 1,000 plugins which add more serverless use-cases and workflows to the Framework.

Actively maintained by Serverless Inc.

Contents

• Features
• Quick Start
• Plugins
• Contributing
• Community
• Licensing

Features

• Hyper-Productive - Build more and manage less with serverless architectures.
• Multiple Use-Cases - Choose from tons of efficient serverless use-cases (APIs, Scheduled Tasks, Event Handlers, Streaming Data Pipelines, Web Sockets & more).
• Infra & Code - Deploys both code and infrastructure together, resulting in out-of-the-box serverless apps.
• Easy - Enjoy simple syntax to safely deploy deploy AWS Lambda functions, event sources and more without being a cloud expert.
• Multi-Language - Supports Node.js, Python, Java, Go, C#, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, PHP, Scala, & F#
• Full Lifecycle - Manages the lifecycle of your serverless architecture (build, deploy, update, monitor, troubleshoot).
• Multi-Domains - Group domains into Serverless Services for easy management of code, resources & processes, across large projects & teams.
• Multi-Environments - Built-in support for multiple stages (e.g. development, staging, production).
• Guardrails - Loaded with automation, optimization and best practices.
• Extensible - Extend or modify the Framework and its operations via Plugins.
• Plugin Ecosystem - Extend or modify the Framework and its operations via Plugins.
• Welcoming - A passionate and welcoming community!

Quick Start

Here's how to get started quickly, as well as some recommended development workflows.

Installation

Install serverless module via NPM:

npm install -g serverless

If you don’t already have Node.js on your machine, install it first. If you don't want to install Node or NPM, you can install serverless as a standalone binary.

Creating A Service

To create your first project (known as a Serverless Framework "Service"), run the serverless command below, then follow the prompts.

# Create a new serverless project
serverless

# Move into the newly created directory
cd your-service-name

The serverless command will guide you to:

1. Create a new project
2. Configure your AWS credentials
3. Optionally set up a free Serverless Framework account with additional features.

Your new serverless project will contain a serverless.yml file. This file features simple syntax for deploying infrastructure to AWS, 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. You can learn more about this in the Core Concepts documentation.

The serverless command will give you a variety of templates to choose from. If those do not fit your needs, check out the project examples from Serverless Inc. and our community. You can install any example by passing a GitHub URL using the --template-url option:

serverless --template-url=https://github.com/serverless/examples/tree/v3/...

Please note that you can use serverless or sls to run Serverless Framework commands.

Deploying

If you haven't done so already within the serverless command, you can deploy the project at any time by running:

sls deploy

The deployed AWS Lambda functions and other essential information such as API Endpoint URLs will be displayed in the command output.

More details on deploying can be found here.

Developing On The Cloud

Many Serverless Framework users choose to develop on the cloud, since it matches reality and emulating Lambda locally can be complex. To develop on the cloud quickly, without sacrificing speed, we recommend the following workflow...

To deploy code changes quickly, skip the serverless deploy command which is much slower since it triggers a full AWS CloudFormation update. Instead, deploy code and configuration changes to individual AWS Lambda functions in seconds via the deploy function command, with -f [function name in serverless.yml] set to the function you want to deploy.

sls deploy function -f my-api

More details on the deploy function command can be found here.

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.

To stream your logs while you work, 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 streaming via the -t option.

Developing Locally

Many Serverless Framework users rely on local emulation to develop more quickly. Please note, emulating AWS Lambda and other cloud services is never accurate and the process can be complex. We recommend the following workflow to develop locally...

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:

serverless 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

Monitoring, Secrets & Collaboration

If you're looking for easy, out-of-the-box monitoring, secrets management and collaboration features, sign into the Serverless Framework Dashboard. It's free!

sls login

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.

sls 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:

• Study Serverless Framework's core concepts
• Get inspiration from these Serverless Framework templates
• Discover all of the events that can trigger Lambda functions
• Bookmark Serverless Framework's serverless.yml guide
• Search the plugins registry to extend Serverless Framework

Contributing

We love our contributors! Please read our Contributing Document to learn how you can start working on the Framework yourself.

Check out our help wanted or good first issue labels to find issues we want to move forward on with your help.

Community

• Twitter
• Community Slack
• Serverless Meetups
• Stackoverflow
• Facebook
• Contact Us

Licensing

Serverless is licensed under the MIT License.

All files located in the node_modules and external directories are externally maintained libraries used by this software which have their own licenses; we recommend you read them, as their terms may differ from the terms in the MIT License.