Deprecation notice: This project in the given form is no longer maintained. The underlying infrastructure will be kept intact as long as it doesn't require any extra maintenance, which is no longer provided. Please check Serverless Framework instead

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Serverless Components are abstractions that enable developers to deploy serverless applications and use-cases more easily, all via the Serverless Framework.

Important Note: Serverless Components work differently from Serverless Framework's traditional local deployment model. To deliver a significantly faster development experience, your source code and temporary credentials will pass through an innovative, hosted deployment engine (similar to a CI/CD product). Learn more about our deployment engine's handling of credentials and source code here.

Serverless Components is now Generally Available. Click here for the Beta version.

• Ease - Deploy entire serverless applications/use-cases via Components, without being a cloud expert.
• Instant Deployments - Components deploy in ~8s seconds, making rapid development on the cloud possible.
• Streaming Logs - Components stream logs from your app to your console in real-time, for fast debugging.
• Automatic Metrics - Many Components auto-set-up metrics upon deployment.
• Build Your Own - Components are easy to build.
• Registry - Share your Components with you, your team, and the world, via the Serverless Registry.

Deploy a serverless app rapidly, with any of these commands:

$ npx serverless init fullstack-app
$ npx serverless init express-starter
$ npx serverless init react-starter
$ npx serverless init vue-starter
$ npx serverless init graphql-starter

Documentation

• Quick-Start
• Overview
• Using Components
  • Serverless Framework
  • serverless.yml
  • Actions, Inputs & Outputs
  • Deploying
  • State
  • Providers
  • Stages
  • Variables
    • Variables: Org
    • Variables: Stage
    • Variables: App
    • Variables: Name
    • Variables: Environment Variables
    • Variables: Outputs
  • Proxy
• CLI Commands
  • serverless registry
  • serverless publish
  • serverless deploy
  • serverless remove
  • serverless info
  • serverless dev
  • serverless param
• Building Components
  • serverless.component.yml
  • serverless.js
  • Input & Output Types
  • Working With Source Code
  • Adding The Serverless Agent
  • Development Workflow
  • Development Tips
    • Start With The Outcome
    • Knowing The Outcome Is An Advantage
    • Keep Most State On The Cloud Provider
    • Store State Immediately After A Successful Operation
    • Optimize For Accessibility
    • No Surprise Removals
    • Write Integration Tests
• Components List
• F.A.Q.

Quick-Start

To get started with Serverless Components, install the latest version of the Serverless Framework:

$ npm i -g serverless

Login into the Serverless dashboard via the CLI:

$ serverless login

Before you proceed, make sure you connect your AWS account by creating a provider in the settings page on the Serverless Dashboard.

Then, run serverless registry to see many Component-based templates you can deploy, or see more in the Serverless Framework Dashboard. These contain Components as well as boilerplate code, to get you started quickly.

Install anything from the registry via $ serverless init <template>, like this:

$ serverless init express-starter

cd into the generated directory. And deploy!

$ serverless deploy

After few seconds, you should get a URL as an output. If you visit that URL you'll see a successful "Request Received" message.

Fetch the your Component Instance's info...

$ serverless info

Run the serverless dev command to auto-deploy on save, and have logs and errors stream in real-time to your console (if supported by the Component)...

$ serverless dev

Deploy other Components that you may want to use with your Express Component. For example, you may want to give your Express application permissions to other resources on your AWS account via the aws-iam-role Component. You may also want an AWS DynamoDB table to use with your Express Component, via the aws-dynamodb Component. You can initialize and deploy them just like the express component. You can then use them with your express Component, like this:

org: your-org # Your Org
app: your-app # Your App
component: express
name: express-api

inputs:
  src: ./src
  roleName: ${output:my-role.name}
  env:
    dbTableName: ${output:${stage}:${app}:my-table.name}

Note: Serverless Components only supports Node.js applications at the moment.

Overview

We (Serverless Inc) made Serverless Framework Components because composing, configuring and managing low-level serverless infrastructure can be complicated for developers and teams.

Serverless Components are merely libraries of code that deploy use-cases onto serverless cloud infrastructure for you. Each Component contains the best infrastructure pattern for that use-case, for scale, performance, cost optimization, collaboration and more.

Use-Cases

You can use Serverless Components to abstract over anything, but these are the most common patterns:

1. An entire application, like a blog, video streaming service, or landing page.
2. A software feature, like user authentication, comments, or a payment system.
3. A low-level use-case, like a data processing pipeline or microservice.

Features

Ease

Serverless Components are use-case first. Infrastructure details that aren't necessary for the use-case are hidden, and use-case focused configuration is offered instead.

Here's what it looks like to provision a serverless website hosted on AWS S3, delivered globally and quickly w/ AWS Cloudfront, via a custom domain on AWS Route 53, secured by a free AWS ACM SSL Certificate:

# serverless.yml

component: website # A Component in the Registry
name: my-website # The name of your Component Instance

inputs: # The configuration the Component accepts
  src:
    src: ./src
    hook: npm run build
    dist: ./dist
  domain: mystore.com

Instant Deployments

Serverless Components deploy fast (~8 seconds), removing the need to emulate cloud services locally for fast feedback during the development process.

$ serverless deploy

8s > my-express-app › Successfully deployed

Build Your Own

Serverless Components are easily written in Javascript (serverless.js), with syntax inspired by component-based frameworks, like React.

// serverless.js

const { Component } = require('@serverless/core');

class MyBlog extends Component {
  async deploy(inputs) {
    console.log('Deploying a serverless blog'); // Leave a status update for users deploying your Component with --debug
    this.state.url = outputs.url; // Save state
    return outputs;
  }
}

module.exports = MyBlog;

Registry

Anyone can build a Serverless Component and share it in our Registry.

$ serverless publish

[email protected] › Published

Serverless

Serverless Components favor cloud infrastructure with serverless qualities. They are also entirely vendor agnostic, enabling you to easily use services from different vendors, together. Like, AWS Lambda, AWS S3, Azure Functions, Google Big Query, Twilio, Stripe, Algolia, Cloudflare Workers and more.

Using Components

Serverless Framework

Serverless Components are a Serverless Framework feature. You use them with the Serverless Framework CLI. Install it via:

$ npm i serverless -g

serverless.yml

To use a Serverless Component, declare the name of one that exists in the Serverless Registry in your serverless.yml.

The syntax looks like this:

# serverless.yml

component: [email protected] # The name and version of the Component in the Registry.  To always use the latest, include no '@' and version (e.g. 'component: express').
org: acme # The name of your Serverless Framework Org
app: fullstack # Optional. The name of a high-level app container.  Useful if you want to group apps together.
name: rest-api # The name of your Serverless Framework App

inputs: # The parameters to send to the "deploy" action of the component.
  src: ./src
  domain: api.my-app.com

There is nothing to install when using Serverless Components. They live in the cloud. When you run deploy, the configuration you specify in serverless.yml will be sent to the Serverless Components Engine, along with the files or source code you specifiy in inputs.

Other Notes:

• You cannot use Serverless Components within an existing Serverless Framework project file (i.e. a serverless.yml file that contains functions, events, resources and plugins).

• You can only have 1 Serverless Component in serverless.yml. We encourage this because it's important to separate the resources in your Serverless Applications, rather than put all of them in 1 infrastructure stack.

Actions, Inputs & Outputs

Every Serverless Component can perform one or many Actions, which are functions that contain logic which the Component can do for you, such as:

• deploy - Deploy something onto cloud infrastructure.
• remove - Remove something from cloud infrastructure.
• test - Test some functionality provisioned by the Component, like an API endpoint.
• metrics - Get metrics about the Component's performance.

Components ship with their own unique Actions, though all have deploy and remove. One way to think about Actions is to consider Components as Javascript classes and Actions are the class methods.

You can run Component Actions via the Serverless Framework CLI or the Serverless Framework SDK.

All Actions accept parameters known as Inputs and return other parameters known as Outputs.

In serverless.yml the inputs property are merely Inputs that you wish to send to the deploy Action of your Component.

Every Action has it' own Inputs and Outputs.

When a Component Action is finished running, it returns an outputs object.

Outputs contain the most important information you need to know from a deployed Component Instance, like the URL of the API or website, or all of the API endpoints.

Outputs can be referenced easily in the inputs of other Components. Just use this syntax:

# Simpler Syntax - References the same "stage" and "app"
${output:[instance].[output]}

# More Configurable Syntax - Customize the "stage" and "app"
${output:[stage]:[app]:[instance].[output]}

• stage - The stage that the referenced component instance was deployed to. It is the stage property in that component instance serverless.yml file.
• app - The app that the referenced component instance was deployed to. It is the app property in that component instance serverelss.yml file, which falls back to the name property if you did not specify it.
• instance - The name of the component instance you are referencing. It is the name property in that component instance serverless.yml file.
• output - One of the outputs of the component instance you are referencing. They are displayed in the CLI after deploying.

# Examples
${output:prod:ecommerce:products-api.url}
${output:prod:ecommerce:role.arn}
${output:prod:ecommerce:products-database.name}

Deploying

You can deploy Components easily via the Serverless Framework with the $ serverless deploy command.

$ serverless deploy

This command can be run in any directory containing a valid components serverless.yml as shown above. You can also run serverless deploy in any directory that contains multiple component directories, in which case it would deploy all these components in parallel whenever possible according to their output variable dependencies. If you'd like to make sure all these related components deploy to the same org, app & stage, you can create a serverless.yml file at the parent level that includes these properties. The fullstack-app template is a good example for all of this.

While Serverless Components deploy incredibly fast, please note that first deployments can often be 2x slower because creating cloud resources takes a lot longer than updating them. Also note that some resources take a few minutes to be availbale. For example, APIs and Website URLs may take 1-2 minutes before they are available.

State

Serverless Components automatically save their state remotely. This means you can easily push your Components to Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, etc., and collaborate on them with others as long as the serverless.yml contains an org which your collaboraters are added to:

org: acme-team # Your collaboraters must be added at dashboard.serverless.com
app: ecommerce
component: my-component
name: rest-api

Further, your Component Instances can easily be deployed with CI/CD, as long as you make sure to include a SERVERLESS_ACCESS_KEY environment variable.

You can add collaboraters and create access tokens in the Serverless Framework Dashboard.

Versioning

Serverless Components use semantic versioning.

component: [email protected]

When you add a version, only that Component version is used. When you don't add a version, the Serverless Framework will use the latest version of that Component, if it exists. We recommend to always pin your Component to a version.

Providers

Upon deployment, the Serverless Framework Components looks for a provider connected to your service. If none was found, the default provider will be used. You can manage providers in the settings page on the Serverless Dashboard. To learn more about the Providers feature, check out its docs here.

Stages

Serverless Components have a Stages concept, which enables you to deploy entirely separate Component Instances and their cloud resources per stage.

The dev Stage is always used as the default stage. If you wish to change your stage, set it in serverless.yml, like this:

org: my-org
app: my-app
component: [email protected]
name: my-component-instance
stage: prod # Enter the stage here

You can also specify a Stage within the SERVERLESS_STAGE Environment Variable, which overrides the stage set in serverless.yml:

SERVERLESS_STAGE=prod

And, you can specify a Stage upon deployment via a CLI flag, which overrides anything set in serverless.yml AND an Environment Variable, like this:

$ serverless deploy --stage prod

Again, the CLI flag overrides both a stage in serverless.yml and an Environment Variable. Whereas an Environment Variable can only override the stage in serverless.yml.

Lastly, you can set stage-specific environment variables using separate .env files. Each file must be named in the following format: .env.STAGE. For example, if you run in the prod stage, the environment variables in .env.prod would be loaded, otherwise the default .env file (without stage extension) would be loaded. You can also put the .env.STAGE file in the immediate parent directory, in the case that you have a parent folder containing many Component Instances.

Variables

You can use Variables within your Component Instances serverless.yml to reference Environment Variables, values from within serverless.yml and Outputs from other Serverless Component Instances that you've already deployed.

Here is a quick preview of possibilities:

org: acme
app: ecommerce
component: express
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  name: ${org}-${stage}-${app}-${name} # Results in "acme-prod-ecommerce-rest-api"
  region: ${env:REGION} # Results in whatever your environment variable REGION= is set to.
  roleArn: ${output:prod:my-app:role.arn} # Fetches an output from another component instance that is already deployed
  roleArn: ${output:${stage}:${app}:role.arn} # You can combine variables too

Variables: Org

You can reference your org value in the inputs of your YAML in serverless.yml by using the ${org} Variable, like this:

org: acme
app: ecommerce
component: express
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  name: ${org}-api # Results in "acme-api"

Note: If you didn't specify an org, the default org would be the first org you created when you first signed up. You can always overwrite the default org or the one specified in serverless.yml by passing the --org option on deploy:

$ serverless deploy --org my-other-org

Variables: Stage

You can reference your stage value in the inputs of your YAML in serverless.yml by using the ${stage} Variable, like this:

org: acme
app: ecommerce
component: express
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  name: ${stage}-api # Results in "prod-api"

Note: If you didn't specify a stage, the default stage would be dev. You can always overwrite the default stage or the one specified in serverless.yml by passing the --stage option on deploy:

$ serverless deploy --stage prod

Variables: App

You can reference your app value in the inputs of your YAML in serverless.yml by using the ${app} Variable, like this:

org: acme
app: ecommerce
component: express
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  name: ${app}-api # Results in "ecommerce-api"

Note: If you didn't specify an app, the default app name would be the instance name (the name property in serverless.yml). You can always overwrite the default app or the one specified in serverless.yml by passing the --app option on deploy:

$ serverless deploy --app my-other-app

Variables: Name

You can reference your name value in the inputs of your YAML in serverless.yml by using the ${name} Variable, like this:

org: acme
app: ecommerce
component: express
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  name: ${name} # Results in "rest-api"

Variables: Environment Variables

You can reference Environment Variables (e.g. those that you defined in the .env file or that you've set in your environment manually) directly in serverless.yml by using the ${env} Variable.

For example, if you want to reference the REGION environment variable, you could do that with ${env:REGION}.

component: express
org: acme
app: ecommerce
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  region: ${env:REGION}

Variables: Outputs

Perhaps one of the most useful Variables is the ability to reference Outputs from other Component Instances that you have already deployed. This allows you to share configuration/data easily across as many Component Instances as you'd like.

If you want to reference an Output of another Component Instance, use the ${output:[app]:[stage]:[instance name].[output]} syntax, like this:

component: express
org: acme
app: ecommerce
name: rest-api
stage: prod

inputs:
  roleArn: ${output:[STAGE]:[APP]:[INSTANCE].arn} # Fetches an output from another component instance that is already deployed

You can access Outputs across any App, Instance, in an any Stage, within the same Org.

A useful feature of this is the ability to share resources easily, and even do so across environments. This is useful when developers want to deploy a Component Instance in their own personal Stage, but access shared resources within a common "development" Stage, like a database. This way, the developers on your team do not have to recreate the entire development stage to perform their feature work or bug fix, only the Component Instance that needs changes.

Proxy

Problem: your environment does not have permission to access the public network and can access the public network only through a proxy, and a network failure is reported when sls deploy is executed.
Solution: add the following configuration to the .env file, it needs the version of Node.js >= 11.7.0:

HTTP_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:12345 # Your proxy
HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:12345 # Your proxy

or:

http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:12345 # Your proxy
https_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:12345 # Your proxy

Security Considerations

Serverless Framework Components are used via the Serverless Framework CLI, but they are different from Serverless Framework's Traditional experience in that deployment happens via an innovative hosted deployment engine (similar to a CI/CD product). You will be prompted when using Components, to login and ensure you're aware of this difference.

Here are the security implications of this.

Credentials

Serverless Framework Components relies completely on our secure Providers feature, which will help you create an AWS IAM Role which our hosted engine can call to automatically generate temporary credentials before every action it performs. Read more about Providers here, or go to the Serverless Framework Dashboard and navigate to "Org" and "Providers" to create one.

The temporary credentials generated by your provider will pass through our company's hosted deployment engine. These credentials are not stored. This design enables 95% faster deployments, automatic metrics, real-time logging, and more, all accessible from multiple clients.

We also recommend you strictly limit the scope of your credentials or access role to allow only what each Serverless Framework Component needs. Each Component deploys a specific use-case and specific infrastructure, so permissions required are significantly reduced compared to what Serverless Framework Traditional requires. Further, clear permission policies for each Component will soon be available to help you understand what permissions are required.

Source Code

Your application source code will be uploaded and temporarily stored within our hosted deployment engine. This design enables 95% faster deployments, automatic metrics, real-time logging, and rollback features, all accessible from multiple clients. In the near future, we will enable storing code on your own account, but we have not yet reached this section of our roadmap.

CLI Commands

serverless registry

See available Components

serverless publish

Publish a Component to the Serverless Registry.

--dev - Publishes to the @dev version of your Component, for testing purposes.

serverless init <package-name>

Initializes the specified package (component or template) locally to get you started quickly.

--dir, -d - Specify destination directory.

serverless deploy

Deploys an Instance of a Component.

--debug - Lists console.log() statements left in your Component upon deploy or any action.

serverless remove

Removes an Instance of a Component.

--debug - Lists console.log() statements left in your Component upon remove or any action.

serverless info

Fetches information of an Instance of a Component.

--debug - Lists state.

serverless dev

Starts DEV MODE, which watches the Component for changes, auto-deploys on changes, and (if supported by the Component) streams logs, errors and transactions to the terminal.

serverless param-Chinsese users only available now

User can set and list secrets value as parameters by CLI with app and stage

Set parameters

serverless param set id=param age=12 [--app test] [--stage dev]

• User can set multiple parameters once, use paramName=paramValue
• If user does not set app or stage, CLI will read from config file or use default values

List parameters

serverless param list [--app test] [--stage dev]

• If user does not set app or stage, CLI will read from config file or use default values
• CLI will show the all parameters for current stage and app

Use parameters in serverless.yml

serverless <command> --inputs key=value foo=bar

Runs any component custom command, and passes inputs to it. The inputs you pass in the above syntax overwrite any inputs found in the serverless.yml file.

Few examples:

# simple example
serverless test --inputs domain=serverless.com

# passing objects with JSON syntax
serverless invoke --inputs env='{"LANG": "en"}'

# passing arrays with comma separation
serverless backup --inputs userIds=foo,bar

Building Components

If you want to build your own Serverless Component, there are 2 essential files you need to be aware of:

• serverless.component.yml - This contains the definition of your Serverless Component.
• serverless.js - This contains your Serverless Component's code.

One of the most important things to note is that Serverless Components only run in the cloud and do not run locally. That means, to run and test your Component, you must publish it first (it takes only few seconds to publish). We're continuing to improve this workflow. Here's how to do it...

serverless.component.yml

To declare a Serverless Component and make it available within the Serverless Registry, you must create a serverless.component.yml file with the following properties:

# serverless.component.yml

name: express # Required. The name of the Component
version: 0.0.4 # Required. The version of the Component
author: eahefnawy # Required. The author of the Component
org: serverlessinc # Required. The Serverless Framework org which owns this Component
main: ./src # Required. The directory which contains the Component code
description: Deploys Serverless Express.js Apps # Optional. The description of the Component
keywords: aws, serverless, express # Optional. The keywords of the Component to make it easier to find at registry.serverless.com
repo: https://github.com/owner/project # Optional. The code repository of the Component
license: MIT # Optional. The license of the Component code

serverless.js

A serverless.js file contains the Serverless Component's code.

To make a bare minimum Serverless Component, create a serverless.js file, extend the Component class and add a deploy method like this:

// serverless.js

const { Component } = require('@serverless/core');

class MyComponent extends Component {
  async deploy(inputs = {}) {
    return {};
  } // The default functionality to run/provision/update your Component
}

module.exports = MyComponent;

Note: You do NOT need to install the @serverless/core package via npm. This package is automatically available to you in the cloud environment.

deploy() is always required. It is where the logic resides in order for your Component to make something. Whenever you run the $ serverless deploy command, it's always calling the deploy() method.

You can also add other methods to this class. A remove() method is often the next logical choice, if you want your Serverless Component to remove the things it creates, via $ serverless remove.

You can add as many methods as you want. This is interesting because it enables you to ship more automation with your Component, than logic that merely deploys and removes something.

It's still early days for Serverless Components, but we are starting to work on Components that ship with their own test() function, or their own logs() and metrics() functions, or seed() for establishing initial values in a database Component. Overall, there is a lot of opportunity here to deliver Components that are loaded with useful automation.

All methods other than the deploy() method are optional. All methods take a single inputs object, not individual arguments, and return a single outputs object.

Here is what it looks like to add a remove method, as well as a custom method.

// serverless.js

const { Component } = require('@serverless/core');

class MyComponent extends Component {
  /*
   * The default functionality to run/provision/update your Component
   * You can run this function by running the "$ serverless deploy" command
   */
  async deploy(inputs = {}) {
    return {};
  }

  /*
   * If your Component removes infrastructure, this is recommended.
   * You can run this function by running "$ serverless remove"
   */

  async remove(inputs = {}) {
    return {};
  }

  /*
   * If you want to ship your Component w/ extra functionality, put it in a method.
   * You can run this function by running "$ serverless anything"
   */

  async anything(inputs = {}) {
    return {};
  }
}

module.exports = MyComponent;

When inside a Component method, this comes with utilities which you can use. Here is a guide to what's available to you within the context of a Component.

// serverless.js

const { Component } = require('@serverless/core');

class MyComponent extends Component {
  async deploy(inputs = {}) {
    // this features useful information
    console.log(this);

    // Common provider credentials are identified in the environment or .env file and added to this.context.credentials
    // when you run "serverless deploy", then the credentials in .env will be used
    // when you run "serverless deploy --stage prod", then the credentials in .env.prod will be used...etc
    // if you don't have any .env files, then global aws credentials will be used
    const dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB({ credentials: this.credentials.aws });

    // You can easily create a random ID to name cloud infrastructure resources with using this utility.
    const s3BucketName = `my-bucket-${this.resourceId()}`;
    // This prevents name collisions.

    // Components have built-in state storage.
    // Here is how to save state to your Component:
    this.state.name = 'myComponent';

    // If you want to show a debug statement in the CLI, use console.log.
    console.log('this is a debug statement');

    // Return your outputs
    return { url: websiteOutputs.url };
  }
}

module.exports = MyComponent;

Input & Output Types

Every Serverless Component has Actions (which are merely functions, e.g. deploy, remove, metrics). Each Action accepts Inputs and returns Outputs. Serverless Components can optionally declare Types for the Inputs and Outputs of each Action. in their serverless.component.yml, which make them easier to write and use.

Inputs & Output Types are recommended because they offer the following benefits:

• They validate an Action is supported by a Component before running it.
• They validate user Inputs before they are sent to a Component's Actions.
• They prevent Component authors from needing to write their own validation logic.
• They offer helpful errors to Component users when they enter invalid Inputs.
• They can automate documentation for your Component.
• They are needed for upcoming Serverless Framework Dashboard features that will enable visualizing Input and Output data special ways (e.g. form fields, charts, etc.).

Types are optionally declared in serverless.component.yml files.

You must first declare the Actions the Component uses, like this:

name: express
version: 1.5.7
org: serverlessinc
description: Deploy a serverless Express.js application onto AWS Lambda and AWS HTTP API.

actions:
  # deploy action
  deploy:
    # deploy action definition
    definition: Deploy your Express.js application to AWS Lambda, AWS HTTP API and more.
    inputs:
      # An array of Types goes here.
    outputs:
      # An array of Types goes here.

Below is a full example, which also details all supported Types (Disclaimer: This combines documentation and a real example. Hopefully it's more helpful!).

name: express
version: 1.5.7
org: serverlessinc
description: Deploy a serverless Express.js application onto AWS Lambda and AWS HTTP API.

actions:
  # deploy action
  deploy:
    # deploy action definition
    definition: Deploy your Express.js application to AWS Lambda, AWS HTTP API and more.
    inputs:
      #
      #
      # Primitive Types
      # These cover standard data types, like "string", "number", "object", etc.
      #
      #

      # Type: string

      name: # The name of the input/output
        type: string # The type
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        default: my-app # The default value
        description: The name of the AWS Lambda function. # A description of this parameter
        min: 5 # Minimum number of characters
        max: 64 # Maximum number of characters
        regex: ^[a-z0-9-]*$ # A RegEx pattern to validate against.
        allow: # The values that are allowed for this
          - my-api
          - my-backend

      # Type: number

      memory: # The name of the input/output
        type: number # The type.  These can be integers or decimals.
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        default: 2048 # The default value
        description: The memory size of the AWS Lambda function. # A description of this parameter
        min: 128 # Minimum number allowed
        max: 3008 # Maximum number allowed
        allow: # The values that are allowed for this
          - 128
          - 1024
          - 2048
          - 3008

      # Type: boolean

      delete: # The name of the input/output
        type: boolean # The type.
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: Whether to delete this infrastructure resource when removed # A description of this parameter
        default: true # The default value

      # Type: object

      vpcConfig: # The name of the input/output
        type: object # The type
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: The VPC configuration for your AWS Lambda function # A description of this input
        keys:
          # Add more Types in here
          securityGroupIds: # The name of the key
            type: string

      # Type: array

      mappingTemplates: # The name of the input/output
        type: array # The type
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: The mapping templates for your GraphQL endpoints. # A description of this input
        min: 1 # Minimum array items
        max: 10 # Max array items
        items:
          # Add more Types in here, that you wish to allow, without "name" properties because they are array items.
          - type: string
            min: 5
            max: 13

          - type: object
            keys:
              # Add more standard Types in here, with "name" properties because they are object properties.
              - name: aws_lambda
                type: string

        default: # Default array items
          - '12345678'

      #
      #
      # Special Types
      # These are special types, they cover handling source code, and more
      #
      #

      # Type: src
      # This Type specifies a folder containing code or general files you wish to upload upon deployment, which the Component may need to deploy a specific outcome. Before running the Component in the cloud, the Serverless Framework will first upload any files specified in `src`. Generally, you want to keep the package size of your serverless applications small (<5MB) in order to have the best performance in serverless compute services. Larger package sizes will also make deployments slower since the upload process is dependent on your internet connection bandwidth. Consider a tool to build and minify your code first. You can specify a build hook to run and a `dist` folder to upload, via the `src` property.
      # This Type can either be a string containing a relative path to your source code, or an object.

      src: # The name "src" is reserved for this Type.  Your inputs can only have one of these.
        type: src # The type
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: The source code of your application that will be uploaded to AWS Lambda. # A description of this parameter
        src: # A relative file path to the directory which contains your source code and any scripts you wish to run via the "hook" property.
        hook: # A script you wish to run before uploading your source code.
        dist: # The directory containing your built source code which you wish to upload.
        exclude: # An array of glob patterns of files/paths to exclude
          - .env # exclude .env file in ./src
          - '.git/**' # exclude .git folder and all subfolders and files inside it
          - '**/*.log' # exclude all files with .log extension in any folder under the ./src

      # Type: env
      # This Type is for an object of key-value pairs meant to contain sensitive information.  By using it, the Serverless Framework will treat this data more securely.

      env: # The name "env" is reserved for this Special Type.  Your params can only have one of these.
        type: env # The type
        # Optional
        description: Environment variables to include in AWS Lambda # A description of this input

      # Type: datetime
      # This Type is an ISO8601 string that contains a datetime.

      rangeStart: # The name of the input/output
        type: datetime
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: The start date of your metrics timeframe. # A description of this input

      # Type: url
      # This Type is for a URL, often describing your root API URL or website URL.

      url: # The name of the input/output
        type: url
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: The url of your website. # A description of this input

      # Type: api
      # This Type is for an OpenAPI specification.

      api: # The name of the input/output
        type: api
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: The API from your Express.js app. # A description of this input

      # Type: metrics
      # This Type is for an array of supported Metrics widgets which can be rendered dynamically in GUIs.

      metrics: # The name of the input/output
        type: metrics
        # Optional
        required: true # Defaults to required: false
        description: API metrics from your back-end. # A description of this input

    outputs:
      # Another array of Types goes here.

  # remove action
  remove:
    # ... accepts config identical to the deploy action

type metrics

If you use the metrics Type in your Component Outputs, you must return an array that contains one or many of the following data structures.

Each data structure corresponds to a widget that can be rendered in the Serverless Framework Dashboard.

type: 'bar-v1'

This is for displaying a bar chart. It can support multiple y data sets which cause the bar chart to stack.

In the dashboard, the stat property of the first array is preferred.

{
  // Type: Name and version of this chart type.
  "type": "bar-v1",
  // Title: Name of the chart
  "title": "API Requests & Errors",
  // xData: The values along the bottom of the chart.  Must have the same quantity as yValues.
  "xData": [
    "2021-07-01T19:00:00.999Z",
    "2021-07-01T20:00:00.999Z",
    "2021-07-01T21:00:00.999Z",
    "2021-07-01T22:00:00.999Z"
  ],
  // yDataSets: An array of 1 or more items to include in order to stack the bar charts.
  "yDataSets": [
    {
      "title": "API Requests",
      // yData: An array of the values that correspond to the xData values
      "yData": [3, 43, 31, 65],
      // Color of bar chart.  Must be a hex value.
      "color": "#000000",
      // Stat: A large number to show at the top.  E.g., total api requests
      "stat": 142,
      // Stat Text: Shows next to the large number.  E.g., ms, seconds, requests, etc.  Default is null.
      "statText": "requests",
    },
    {
      "title": "API Errors",
      // yData: An array of the values that correspond to the xData values
      "yData": [2, 3, 1, 6],
      // Color of bar chart.  Must be a hex value.
      "color": "#FF5733",
      // Stat: A large number to show at the top.  E.g., total api errors
      "stat": 12,
      // Stat Text: Shows next to the large number.  E.g., ms, seconds, requests, etc.  Default is null.
      "statText": "errors",
    }
  ]
}

type: 'line-v1'

This is for displaying a line chart. It can support multiple y data sets which cause multiple lines on the chart.

In the dashboard, the stat property of the first array is preferred.

{
  // Type: Name and version of this chart type.
  "type": "line-v1",
  // Title: Name of the chart
  "title": "API Latency",
  // xData: The values along the bottom of the chart.  Must have the same quantity as yValues.
  "xData": [
    "2021-07-01T19:00:00.999Z",
    "2021-07-01T20:00:00.999Z",
    "2021-07-01T21:00:00.999Z",
    "2021-07-01T22:00:00.999Z"
  ],
  // yDataSets: An array of 1 or more items to include for each line.
  "yDataSets": [
    {
      "title": "API P95 Latency",
      // yData: An array of the values that correspond to the xData values
      "yData": [3, 43, 31, 65],
      // Color of bar chart.  Must be a hex value.
      "color": "#000000",
      // Stat: A large number to show at the top.  E.g., total api requests
      "stat": 142,
      // Stat Text: Shows next to the large number.  E.g., ms, seconds, requests, etc.  Default is null.
      "statText": "requests",
    },
    {
      "title": "API P99 Latency",
      // yData: An array of the values that correspond to the xData values
      "yData": [2, 3, 1, 6],
      // Color of bar chart.  Must be a hex value.
      "color": "#FF5733",
      // Stat: A large number to show at the top.  E.g., total api errors
      "stat": 12,
      // Stat Text: Shows next to the large number.  E.g., ms, seconds, requests, etc.  Default is null.
      "statText": "errors",
    }
  ]
}

Working With Source Code

When working with a Component that requires source code (e.g. you are creating a Component that will run on AWS Lambda), if you make the src one of your inputs, anything specified there will be automatically uploaded and made available within the Component environment.

Within your Component, the inputs.src will point to a zip file of the source files within your environment. If you wish to unzip the source files, use this helpful utility method:

async deploy(inputs = {}) {

  // Unzip the source files...
  const sourceDirectory = await this.unzip(inputs.src)

}

Now, you are free to manipulate the source files. When finished, you may want to use this utility method to zip up the source files again because in some circumstances you will next want to upload the code to a compute service (e.g. AWS Lambda).

async deploy(inputs = {}) {

  // Zip up the source files...
  const zipPath = await this.zip(sourceDirectory)

}

Adding The Serverless Agent

If your Component runs code, and you want to enable streaming logs, errors and transactions for you Component via Serverless Dev Mode (serverless dev), be sure to add the Serverless SDK into the deployed application/logic. We offer some helpful utility methods to make this possible:

// unzip source zip file
console.log(`Unzipping ${inputs.src}...`);
const sourceDirectory = await instance.unzip(inputs.src);
console.log(`Files unzipped into ${sourceDirectory}...`);

// add sdk to the source directory, add original handler
console.log(`Installing Serverless Framework SDK...`);
instance.state.handler = await instance.addSDK(sourceDirectory, '_express/handler.handler');

// zip the source directory with the shim and the sdk
console.log(`Zipping files...`);
const zipPath = await instance.zip(sourceDirectory);
console.log(`Files zipped into ${zipPath}...`);

After this, you'll likely want to upload the code to a compute service (e.g. AWS Lambda).

Development Workflow

Serverless Components only run in the cloud and cannot be run locally. This presents some tremendous advantages to Component consumers, and we've added some workflow tricks to make the authoring workflow easier. Here they are...

When you have added or updated the code of your Serverless Component and you want to test the change, you will need to publish it first. Since you don't want to publish your changes to a proper version of your Component just for testing (because people may be using it), we allow for you to publish a "dev" version of your Component.

Simply run the following command to publish your Serverless Component to the "dev" version:

$ serverless publish --dev

You can test the "dev" version of your Component in serverless.yml, by including a @dev in your Component name, like this:

# serverless.yml

org: acme
app: fullstack
component: express@dev # Add "dev" as the version
name: rest-api

inputs:
  src: ./src

Run your Component command to test your changes:

$ serverless deploy --debug

When writing a Component, we recomend to always use the --debug flag, so that the Component's console.log() statements are sent to the CLI. These are handy to use in Serverless Components, since they describe what the Component is doing. We recommend you add console.log() statements to your Component wherever you think they are necessary.

class MyComponent extends Component {
  async deploy(inputs) {
    console.log(`Starting MyComponent.`);
    console.log(`Creating resources.`);
    console.log(`Waiting for resources to be provisioned.`);
    console.log(`Finished MyComponent.`);
    return {};
  }
}

When you're ready to publish a new version for others to use, update the version in serverless.component.yml, then run publish without the --dev flag.

# serverless.component.yml

name: [email protected]

$ serverless publish

Serverless: Successfully publish [email protected]

Development Tips

Here are some development tips when it comes to writing Serverless Components:

Start With The Outcome

We recommend starting with a focus on your desired outcome, rather than try to break things down into multiple smaller Components from the start. Trying to break things down into multiple Components most often ends up as a distraction. Create a higher level Component that solves your problem first. Use it. Learn from it. Then consider breaking things down into smaller Components if necessary. At the same time, high-level solutions are what Serverless Components are meant for. They are outcomes—with the lowest operational overhead.

Knowing The Outcome Is An Advantage

Provisioning infrastructure safely and reliably can be quite complicated. However, Serverless Components have a powerful advantage over general infrastructure provisioning tools that seek to enable every possible option and combination (e.g. AWS Cloudformation, Terraform) — Serverless Components know the specific use-case they are trying to deliver.

One of the most important lessons we've learned about software development tools is that once you know the use-case or specific goal, you can create a much better tool.

Components know their use-case. You can use that knowledge to: 1) provision infrastructure more reliably, because you have a clear provisioning path and you can program around the pitfalls. 2) provision infrastructure more quickly 3) add use-case specific automation to your Component in the form of custom methods.

Keep Most State On The Cloud Provider

Serverless Components save remarkably little state. In fact, many powerful Components have less than 10 properties in their state objects.

Components rely on the state saved within the cloud services they use as the source of truth. This prevents drift issues that break infrastructure provisioning tools. It also opens up the possibility of working with existing resources, that were not originally managed by Serverless Components.

Store State Immediately After A Successful Operation

If you do need to store state, try to store it immediately after a successful operation.

// Do something
this.state.id = 'updated or new id';
// Do something else
this.state.url = 'updated or new url';

This way, if anything after that operation fails, your Serverless Component can pick up where it left off, when the end user tries to deploy it again.

Optimize For Accessibility

We believe serverless infrastructure and architectures will empower more people to develop software than ever before.

Because of this, we're designing all of our projects to be as approachable as possible. Please try to use simple, vanilla Javascript. Additionally, to reduce security risks and general bloat, please try to use the least amount of NPM dependencies as possible.

No Surprise Removals

Never surprise the user by deleting or fundamentally changing infrastructure within your Serverless Component, based on a configuration change in serverless.yml.

For example, if a user is changing their region, NEVER remove their infrastructure in one region and automatically recreate it in the new region upon their next $ serverless deploy.

Instead, throw an error with a warning about this:

$ serverless deploy
Error: Changing the region from us-east-1 to us-east-2 will remove your infrastructure. Please remove it manually, change the region, then re-deploy.
$

We have measured this user experience and so far 100% of the time the user will remove their existing Component Instance and deploy another one. This works extremely well.

Write Integration Tests

We write integration tests in the tests/integration.tests.js file in each component repo. We run these tests on every push/merge to master with Github Actions. We recommend you do the same. As an example, here are the tests for the website component:

• Test File
• Test Run

Running these integration tests will most likely require AWS keys, which are stored as Github Secrets. So you'll most likely need write access to the repo to accomplish this.

F.A.Q.

How can I deploy and remove multiple Components at the same time?

A serverless.yml file can only hold 1 Component at this time. However, that does not mean you cannot deploy/remove multiple Components at the same time.

Simply navigate to a parent directory, and run serverless deploy to deploy any serverless.yml files in immediate subfolders. When this happens, the Serverless Framework will quickly create a graph based on the references your Component apps are making to eachother. Depending on those references, it will prioritize what needs to be deployed first, otherwise its default is to deploy things in parallel. This also works for serverless remove.

For context, here is why we designed serverless.yml to only hold 1 Component at a time:

• We have a lot of advanced automation and other features in the works for Components that push the limits of how we think about infrastructure-as-code. Delivering those features is harder if serverless.yml contains multiple Components.

• Many of our support requests come from users who deploy a lot of critical infrastructure together, and end up accidentally breaking that critical infrastructure, often while intending to push updates to one specific area. In response to this, we wanted to make sure there was an easy way to deploy things separately first, so that developers can deploy more safely. Generally, try to keep the things you deploy frequently (e.g. code, functions, APIs, etc.), separate from critical things that you deploy infrequently (e.g. VPCs, databases, S3 buckets). We get that it's convenient to deploy everything together (which is why we still enabled this via the method above), just be careful out there!

Where do Components run?

Components run in the cloud. Here's what that means and why it's important...

We've been working on the Serverless Framework for 5 years now. During that time, there have been many ways we've wanted to better solve user problems, improve the experience and innovate—but we've been limited by the project's design (e.g. requires local installation, hard to push updates, lack of error diagnostics, dealing with user environment quirks, etc.).

Over a year ago, we whiteboarded several groundbreaking ways we can push the boundaries of serverless dev tools (and infrastructure as code in general), and realized the only way to make that happen was to move the majority of work to the cloud.

Now, when you deploy, or perform any other Action of a Component, that happens in our "Components Engine", which we've spent 1.5+ years building. For clarity, this means your source code, environment variables and temporary credentials are passed through the Components Engine.

This is a complete change in how Serverless Framework traditionally worked. However, this is no different from how most build engines, CI/CD products, and cloud services work, as well as AWS CloudFormation, which Serverless Framework traditionally used. The "Components Engine" is a managed service, like AWS CloudFormation, CircleCI, Github, Github Actions, Hosted Gitlab, Terraform Cloud, etc.

As of today, the Components Engine helped enable: The fastest infrastructure deployments possible, streaming logs to your CLI, streaming metrics to the Dashboard, remote state storage and sharing, secrets injection, configuration validation, and so much more. Please note, this is only 25% of our vision for this effort. Otherwise known as the table-stakes features. The real thought-provoking and groundbreaking developer productivity features are coming next...

Part of these features will enable greater security features than we've ever had in Serverless Framework. Features that involve making it easier to reduce the scope of your credentials, analyze/block everything passing through the Engine, rollback unsafe deployments, etc.