Serverless AWS Lambda in Practice: The Code and Commands That Really Matter
Serverless AWS Lambda: The Essentials in One Article — Real Code, Diagrams, and Concrete Steps, Excerpts from a 41-Lesson Course.
No endless theory here: open the terminal and practice. Here is the essentials of Serverless AWS Lambda, extracted directly from a complete 41-lesson course — with real code you can copy-paste right now.
- Create an AWS account
- Discover Serverless
- Lambda Functions in Depth
- API Gateway
- DynamoDB
Complete guide to the final project
Overview of the phases
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Phase 5
Phase 6
Phase 1 – Planning
1.1 – Choose your topic
1.2 – Define your DynamoDB tables
Draw a schema of your tables with the attributes:
Table 1 : Products ───────────────────────────────────── | productId (PK) | name | category | price | quantity | alert_threshold | ───────────────────────────────────── Table 2 : Movements ───────────────────────────────────── | movementId (PK) | productId | type (in/out) | quantity | date | ─────────────────────────────────────
• What is the partition key of each table?
• Do I need a sort key?
• How are the tables linked? (logical foreign key)
• Do I need a GSI for certain queries?
1.3 – Define your API endpoints
List all your endpoints in a table:
| Method | Endpoint | Description | Body |
|---|---|---|---|
| GET | /produits | List all products | – |
| GET | /produits/{id} | Get a product | – |
| POST | /produits | Create a product | {"nom", "categorie", "prix", "quantite"} |
| PUT | /produits/{id} | Update a product | {"nom", "prix", ...} |
| DELETE | /produits/{id} | Delete a product | – |
| GET | /mouvements | List movements | – |
| POST | /mouvements | Record a movement | {"productId", "type", "quantite"} |
1.4 – Draw the architecture
Utilisateur
│
▼
┌──────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ ┌──────────┐
│ S3 │ │ API Gateway │ │ DynamoDB │
│ Frontend │────▶│ REST API │────▶│ Tables │
│ HTML/JS │ │ /produits │ │ │
└──────────┘ │ /mouvements │ └──────────┘
└───────┬───────┘
│
┌────▼────┐
│ Lambda │
│ Python │
└─────────┘Phase 2 – Backend (SAM + Lambda)
2.1 – Initialize the SAM project
sam init --runtime python3.12 --name mon-projet-serverless --app-template hello-world
Or manually create the structure:
mon-projet-serverless/
├── template.yaml
├── src/
│ ├── handlers/
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ ├── produits.py
│ │ └── mouvements.py
│ ├── utils/
│ │ ├── __init__.py
│ │ ├── response.py
│ │ └── validation.py
│ └── requirements.txt
└── frontend/
├── index.html
├── style.css
└── app.js2.2 – Write the template.yaml
Install AWS CLI and configure credentials
Learning objectives
- Explain the role of the AWS CLI
- Install the AWS CLI on Windows, macOS and Linux
- Configure your credentials with
aws configure - Use named profiles to manage multiple accounts
- Verify your connection with
aws sts get-caller-identity - Understand where credentials are stored
- Run your first AWS commands
What is the AWS CLI?
The AWS CLI (Command Line Interface) is a unified tool that lets you manage all AWS services from your terminal. Instead of clicking in the web console, you type commands.
Speed
Run operations in a single line instead of navigating through multiple screens.
Automation
Integrate commands into Bash or PowerShell scripts to automate your tasks.
Reproducibility
Share your commands with your team. Every action is documented and versionable.
Installing AWS CLI v2
Windows
Download and run the MSI installer:
# Download the installer https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi # Or via the command line (PowerShell) msiexec.exe /i https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi
Follow the installation wizard, accept the default values and click Install.
macOS
# Download the package curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg" # Install sudo installer -pkg AWSCLIV2.pkg -target /
Alternative with Homebrew:
brew install awscli
Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)
# Download the archive curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip" # Extract unzip awscliv2.zip # Install sudo ./aws/install
Verify the installation
On all systems, verify that the installation succeeded:
aws --version
aws-cli/2.15.x Python/3.11.x Windows/10 exe/AMD64
SAM CLI – Build, Deploy, Test
sam init, build with sam build, test locally with sam local and deploy with sam deploy. Master the complete local serverless development workflow.Learning objectives
- Install and configure the SAM CLI
- Create a new serverless project with
sam init - Build a project with
sam build - Invoke a function locally with
sam local invoke - Start a local API server with
sam local start-api - Deploy the project to AWS with
sam deploy - Understand the role of Docker in local testing
Step 1 – Install SAM CLI
Prerequisites
AWS CLI
The AWS CLI must be installed and configured (aws configure).
Docker
Required for sam local (simulates the Lambda environment).
Python 3.9+
Or the runtime of your choice (Node.js, Java, Go, etc.).
Installation according to your OS
# Windows (with MSI installer) # Download from: https://github.com/aws/aws-sam-cli/releases/latest # Or via Chocolatey: choco install aws-sam-cli # macOS (with Homebrew) brew install aws-sam-cli # Linux pip install aws-sam-cli
Verify the installation
# Check the version sam --version
Expected result:
SAM CLI, version 1.120.0
Step 2 – Create a project with sam init
# Create a new SAM project sam init
The CLI will guide you through the choices:
Which template source would you like to use? 1 - AWS Quick Start Templates 2 - Custom Template Location Choice: 1 Choose an AWS Quick Start application template 1 - Hello World Example 2 - Data processing 3 - Hello World Example with Powertools ... Template: 1 Use the most popular runtime and package type? (python3.12 and zip) y Would you like to enable X-Ray tracing on the function(s)? y Would you like to enable monitoring using CloudWatch Application Insights? y Would you like to set Structured Logging in JSON format on your Lambda functions? y Project name [sam-app]: mon-api-serverless
Generated project structure
mon-api-serverless/
└── README.md
└── __init__.py
└── events/
│ └── event.json # Test event
└── hello_world/
│ └── __init__.py
│ └── app.py # Lambda function code
│ └── requirements.txt # Python dependencies
└── template.yaml # SAM template
└── samconfig.toml # Deployment config
└── tests/
└── __init__.py
└── unit/
└── test_handler.py # Unit testsThis article covers the most useful excerpts — the complete Serverless AWS Lambda course (12 chapters, 41 lessons, corrected exercises and final project) takes you all the way.
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