What happened to my AWS Amplify Customizations? A new way to override resources
We’ve been using the AWS Amplify toolkit to quickly build out a serverless infrastructure for one of our web apps. The services we use are IAM, Cognito, API Gateway, Lambda, and DynamoDB. We’ve found that the Amplify CLI and platform is a nice way to get us up and running. We then update the resulting CloudFormation templates as necessary for our specific needs. You can see our series of videos about our experience here.
The Problem
However, starting with the Amplify CLI version 7, AWS changed the way to override Amplify-generated resource configurations in the form of CFT files. We found this out the hard way when we tried to update the generated CFT files directly. After upgrading the CLI and then calling amplify push, our changes were overridden with default values – NOT GOOD! Specifically, we wanted to add a custom attribute to our Cognito pool.
After a few frustrating hours of troubleshooting and support from AWS, we realized that the Amplify CLI tooling changed how to override Amplify-generated content. AWS announced the changes here, but unfortunately, we didn’t see the announcement or accompanying blog post.
The Solution
Amplify now generates an “overrides.ts” Typescript file for you to provide your own customizations using Cloud Development Kit (CDK) constructs.
In our case, we wanted to create a Cognito custom attribute. Instead of changing the CFT directly (under the new “build” folder in Amplify), we generate an “override.ts” file using the command: “amplify override auth”. We then added our custom attribute using the CDK:
Important Note: The amplify folder structure gets changed starting with CLI version 7. To avoid deployment issues, be sure to keep your CLI version consistent between your local environment and the build settings in the AWS console. Here’s the Amplify Build Setting window in the console (note that we’re using “latest” version):
If you’re upgrading your CLI, especially to version 7, make sure to test deployments in a non-production environment, first.
What are some other uses for this updated override technique? The Amplify blog post and documentation mention examples like Cognito overrides for password policies and IAM roles for auth/unauth users. They also mention S3 overrides for bucket configurations like versioning.
For DynamoDB, we’ve found that Amplify defaults to a provisioned capacity model. There are benefits to this, but this model charges an hourly rate for consumption whether you use it or not. This is not always ideal when you’re building a greenfield app or a proof-of-concept. We used the amplify override tools to set our billing mode to On-demand or “Pay per request”. Again, this may not be ideal for your use case, but here’s the override.ts file we used:
Conclusion
At first, I found this new override process frustrating since it discourages direct updates to the generated CFT files. But I suppose this is a better way to abstract out your own customizations and track them separately. It’s also a good introduction to the AWS CDK, a powerful way to program your environment beyond declarative yaml files like CFT.
Further reading and references:
DynamoDB On-Demand: When, why and how to use it in your serverless applications
Authentication – Override Amplify-generated Cognito resources – AWS Amplify Docs
Override Amplify-generated backend resources using CDK | Front-End Web & Mobile (amazon.com)
Top reasons why we use AWS CDK over CloudFormation – DEV Community
Here is our final video in the 3-part series Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify. In case you missed Part 1 you can find it here along with Part 2 here. Please let us know if you would like to learn more about this series!
The video below is Part 2 of our 3-part series: Building and Securing Serverless Apps using AWS Amplify. In case you missed Part 1 – take a look at it here. Be sure to stay tuned for Part 3!
AWS Amplify is a set of tools that promises to make full-stack, cloud-native development quicker and easier. We’ve used it to build and deploy different products without getting bogged down by heavy infrastructure configuration. On one hand, Amplify gives you a rapid head start with services like Lambda functions, APIs, CI/CD pipelines, and CloudFormation/IaC templates. On the other hand, you don’t always know what it’s generating and how it’s securing your resources.
If you’re curious about rapid development tools that can get you started on the road to serverless but want to understand what’s being created, check out our series of videos.
We’ll take a front-end web app and incrementally build out authentication, API/function, and storage layers. Along the way, we’ll point out any gotchas or lessons learned from our experience.