The document discusses best practices for using the AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit) to define cloud infrastructure as code. It recommends breaking code into reusable constructs, using multiple stacks for large applications, automating testing, and avoiding non-deterministic behavior. The CDK allows defining AWS resources like S3 buckets and CloudFront distributions through code instead of templates, and compiles code into CloudFormation templates.

2. AWS CDK​ - Beyond the Introduction
Jason Butz
Solution Architect & Practice Lead @ DMI
dminc.com jasonbutz.info @jbutz@hachyderm.io

3. CDK Summary
• Define resources using programming languages, not
YAML/JSON files
• Define constructs that encapsulate one or more resources into
reusable objects
• Abstract complex configuration and streamline resource
definitions
• Translates code to CloudFormation template(s)
• CLI tools

4. Don't Put It All In the Constructor!
Use constructs and methods to
break up the code

5. L3 Constructs
• Create your own!
• Encapsulate complex configuration
• Compose resources into reusable
patterns
• Use AWS’s Solution Constructs

6. One App – Multiple Stacks
• More than nested stacks
• Multiple regions, multiple accounts

7. Example: Deployment Environments

8. Example: jasonbutz.info
CDN Stack (us-east-1)
CloudFront
Distribution
ACM Certificate
Primary Stack (us-east-2)
S3 Replication
Amazon S3 Bucket
Secondary Stack (us-west-2)
Amazon S3 Bucket

9. Automated Testing
• Focus on:
• Important constructs
• Critical infrastructure
• Snapshotting

10. Pipelines

11. Avoid Non-Deterministic Behavior
• Same input → Same output
• Limit arbitrary lookups and avoid side effects

12. Review
• Don't put it all in the constructor
• L3 constructs
• One app – multiple stacks
• Unit test, when appropriate
• CDK Pipelines
• Avoid non-deterministic behavior

13. Thank You
• AWS CDK v2 - What is the AWS CDK?
• AWS CDK v2 - Best practices for developing and
deploying cloud infrastructure with the AWS CDK
• AWS CDK v2 - Runtime context
• AWS Solutions Constructs - Overview
• AWS CDKv2 - CDK Pipelines
• CDK Pipelines for GitHub Workflows
• Construct Hub