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.

Serverless AWS Lambda in Practice: The Code and Commands That Really Matter

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.

tl;dr
  • Create an AWS account
  • Discover Serverless
  • Lambda Functions in Depth
  • API Gateway
  • DynamoDB
~$ cat ./parcours.md # Serverless AWS Lambda — 11 chapters
01
Create an AWS account
→ Create an AWS Free Tier account→ Configure IAM and security+ 1 more lessons
02
Discover Serverless
→ What is Serverless?→ Overview of AWS Serverless services+ 1 more lessons
03
Lambda Functions in depth
→ Anatomy of a Lambda function→ Runtimes, handlers and execution context+ 1 more lessons
04
API Gateway
→ What is API Gateway?→ Create a REST API with API Gateway+ 1 more lessons
05
DynamoDB
→ What is DynamoDB and the NoSQL model?→ Create a table and CRUD operations with boto3+ 1 more lessons
06
Complete CRUD Lambda API Gateway DynamoDB
→ Architecture of the complete CRUD project→ Lambda Functions – Create and Read+ 1 more lessons
07
S3 and Lambda events
→ What is Amazon S3?→ Trigger Lambda from S3+ 1 more lessons
08
SAM Serverless Application Model
→ Why SAM and Infrastructure as Code?→ SAM Template and deployment+ 2 more lessons
🏁
Final project (+ 3 chapters along the way)
→ You leave with a concrete and demonstrable project

Complete guide to the final project

NOTEAbout this guide — This document walks you step by step through the completion of your final project. Follow each phase in order to maximize your chances of success. Consult the document « Final Project – Full Stack Serverless Application » for the requirements and grading rubric.

Overview of the phases

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

Phase 5

Phase 6

Phase 1 – Planning

TIPTip — Never start coding before you have finished planning. A good plan will save you hours of debugging.

1.1 – Choose your topic

1.2 – Define your DynamoDB tables

Draw a schema of your tables with the attributes:

output
Table 1 : Products
─────────────────────────────────────
| productId (PK) | name | category | price | quantity | alert_threshold |
─────────────────────────────────────

Table 2 : Movements
─────────────────────────────────────
| movementId (PK) | productId | type (in/out) | quantity | date |
─────────────────────────────────────
NOTEQuestions to ask yourself
• 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:

MethodEndpointDescriptionBody
GET/produitsList all products
GET/produits/{id}Get a product
POST/produitsCreate a product{"nom", "categorie", "prix", "quantite"}
PUT/produits/{id}Update a product{"nom", "prix", ...}
DELETE/produits/{id}Delete a product
GET/mouvementsList movements
POST/mouvementsRecord a movement{"productId", "type", "quantite"}

1.4 – Draw the architecture

output
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

bash
sam init --runtime python3.12 --name mon-projet-serverless --app-template hello-world

Or manually create the structure:

output
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.js

2.2 – Write the template.yaml

Install AWS CLI and configure credentials

NOTEObjective — Install the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), configure it with your access keys and verify the connection to your account.

Learning objectives

TIPAt the end of this module — You will be able to master these essential skills.
  • 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:

bash
# 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

bash
# Download the package
curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg"

# Install
sudo installer -pkg AWSCLIV2.pkg -target /

Alternative with Homebrew:

bash
brew install awscli

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)

bash
# 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:

bash
aws --version
NOTEExpected result
bash
aws-cli/2.15.x Python/3.11.x Windows/10 exe/AMD64
The version number may vary; the important thing is that the command works.

SAM CLI – Build, Deploy, Test

NOTEObjective — Install the SAM CLI, create a project with 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

TIPAt the end of this module — You will be able to master these essential skills.
  • 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

bash
# 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

bash
# Check the version
sam --version

Expected result:

output
SAM CLI, version 1.120.0

Step 2 – Create a project with sam init

bash
# Create a new SAM project
sam init

The CLI will guide you through the choices:

output
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

output
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 tests
go-further

This 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.

./access-the-complete-course free course: Mastering Claude Code

FAQ

How long does it take to learn Serverless AWS Lambda?
With structured progression (12 chapters, 41 short and practical lessons), you reach an operational level in a few weeks at 30 to 60 minutes per day. The key is to practice each concept immediately.
Are there any prerequisites?
Basic computer knowledge is enough. If you can use a terminal and read simple code, you are ready.
Where to start concretely?
Reproduce the commands in this article, then follow the complete Serverless AWS Lambda course: it chains the 41 lessons in order, with exercises and a final project.

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