Overview

This is a CLI tool to simplify the AWS SAM CLI with Javascript. One line command to make a bucket if not exist, merge multiple cloudformation template files, packaging, deploy and create the cloudformation stack.

Why necessary

The SAM CLI is a great tool especially for packaging and deploying multiple lambda functions simultaneously. The SAM CLI could be much better because this simple-sam-cli...

• Creates a private S3 bucket for deployment after checking the existence.
• Merges multiple cloudformation template files to one file for the SAM CLI to make a package.
• Deploys with the smaller size of package by deleting the dev dependencies and aws-sdk dependency to use the built-in IDE on the lambda functions. After deployment, the dependencies are recovered automatically.
• Records the user configuration in the package.json so you don't have to provide the configuration over and over again.
• You can change the configuration very easily. One way is by providing new parameter values to override the configuration and another way is by updating the package.json to add/change the configuration.
• Provides all-in-one command.

Installation

Prerequisite

Make sure the SAM CLI is installed. The project should be javascript(node.js) based. not python, go or Java. The package.json should be located in the project root folder.

installation

npm install -g simple-sam-cli

How to use

Run the following commands on the project root folder.

simple-sam-cli prepare

This command creates an S3 bucket for deployment if it doesn't exist. If exists, it doesn't create but the configuration is recorded in the package.json

$ simple-sam-cli prepare -b <bucket-name> -r <region>

The example is

$ simple-sam-cli prepare -b my-unique-bucket-1234 -r us-east-1

simple-sam-cli build

This is to minimize the package and merge multiple template files. It creates the ./build folder and assets are copied there.

$ simple-sam-cli build -cf <cloudformation-templates-folder> -sf <source-folder> 

The example is

$ simple-sam-cli build -cf cloudformation -sf src

for the project which has the following folder structure.

Project Root
|- cloudformation - master.yml
|              |- resources - resource1.yml, resource2.yml
|              |- parameters - parameters.yml
|- src -  api - api.js
|    |- utils - utils.js
|- tst - api - api-test.js
|    |- utils - utils.js
|- package.json

The result of this command is

Project Root
|- cloudformation - master.yml
|              |- resources - resource1.yml, resource2.yml
|              |- parameters - parameters.yml
|- lambda - src -  api - api.js
|      |      |- utils - utils.js
|      |__ tst - api - api-test.js
|             |- utils - utils.js
|- package.json
|- build - merged.yml
         |- src - api - api.js
                  |- utils - utils.js

Once you calls this command with the -cf and -sf, you don't have to provide the configuration over and over again. Just call it without the configurations.

$ simple-sam-cli build

simple-sam-cli deploy

This is to upload the package and create the cloudformation stack.

$ simple-sam-cli deploy -b <bucket-name> -s <cloudforamtion-stack-name>

Also, the parameters and tags would be set as the following example. They are the same as the AWS cloudformation deploy command.

$ simple-sam-cli deploy -b unique-bucket-name -s cloudforamtion-stack-name --parameter-overrides Key1=Value1 Key2=Value2 --tags Key1=Value1 Key2=Value2

If you created the bucket via simple-sam-cli prepare, you don't need to provide the bucket name here because it reads the configuration from the package.json.

simple-sam-cli clean

This is to get rid of the build folder.

$ simple-sam-cli clean

simple-sam-cli all

This is all-in-one command.

$ simple-sam-cli all -b <bucket-name> -r <region>  -cf <cloudformation-templates-folder> -sf <source-folder>  -s <cloud-foramtion-stack-name> 

Also, you can provide the --parameter-overrides and --tags as the same as the simple-sam-cli deploy command

Once you call this, you don't have to provide configuration again and again. You can just run as below.

$ simple-sam-cli all 

Configuration in package.json

The configuration is stored in the package.json as below.

{
    ...
    "simple-sam-cli": {
        "bucket": "bucket-name",
        "region": "us-east-1",
        "cloudformation-template-folder": "cloudformation",
        "stack": "a-great-stack-name",
        "source-folder": "src",
        "tags": "--tags tag1=v1 tag2=v2",
        "parameters": "--parameter-overrides param1=value1 param2=value2",
    },
    ...
}

You can directly add the properties with the values for your project. Then the commands could be much simpler because you don't have to add any flags.