Working with the AWS CDK - AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK)

Working with the AWS CDK

The AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) lets you define your AWS cloud infrastructure in a general-purpose programming language. Currently, the AWS CDK supports TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, and (in developer preview) Go. It is also possible to use other JVM and .NET languages, though we are unable to provide support for every such language.

Note

This Guide does not include instructions or code examples for Go aside from Working with the AWS CDK in Go.

We develop the AWS CDK in TypeScript and use JSII to provide a "native" experience in other supported languages. For example, we distribute AWS Construct Library modules using your preferred language's standard repository, and you install them using the language's standard package manager. Methods and properties are even named using your language's recommended naming patterns.

AWS CDK prerequisites

To use the AWS CDK, you need an AWS account and a corresponding access key. If you don't have an AWS account yet, see Create and Activate an AWS Account. To find out how to obtain an access key ID and secret access key for your AWS account, see Understanding and Getting Your Security Credentials. To find out how to configure your workstation so the AWS CDK uses your credentials, see Setting Credentials in Node.js.

Tip

If you have the AWS CLI installed, the simplest way to set up your workstation with your AWS credentials is to open a command prompt and type: 

aws configure

All AWS CDK applications require Node.js 10.13 or later, even if you work in Python, Java, or C#. You may download a compatible version at nodejs.org. We recommend the active LTS version (at this writing, the latest 14.x release). Node.js versions 13.0.0 through 13.6.0 are not compatible with the AWS CDK due to compatibility issues with its dependencies.

After installing Node.js, install the AWS CDK Toolkit (the cdk command): 

npm install -g aws-cdk
Note

If you get a permission error, and have administrator access on your system, try sudo npm install -g aws-cdk.

Test the installation by issuing cdk --version.

The specific language you work in also has its own prerequisites, described in the corresponding topic listed here.

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