This is the AWS CDK v2 Developer Guide. The older CDK v1 entered maintenance on June 1, 2022 and ended support on June 1, 2023.

AWS CDK prerequisites

Complete all prerequisites before getting started with the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK).

Set up your AWS account

If you or your organization are new to AWS, you must set up your AWS account. This includes signing up for an AWS account, securing your root user, determining your method of managing users, and creating an administrative user. To manage users, you can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) or AWS IAM Identity Center. We recommend that you use IAM Identity Center. For more information, see the following:

After setting up an AWS account, you should have an administrative user and the ability to create and manage additional users using IAM or IAM Identity Center.

Before moving forward, we recommend that you take time to learn the recommended best practices in AWS Identity and Access Management. For more information, see Security best practices and use cases in AWS Identity and Access Management in the IAM User Guide.

Install and configure the AWS CLI

When you develop AWS CDK applications on your local machine, you will use the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) Command Line Interface (CLI) to interact with AWS, such as deploying applications to provision your AWS resources. To interact with AWS outside of the AWS Management Console, you must configure security credentials on your local machine. To do this, we recommend that you install and use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

For instructions on installing the AWS CLI, see Install or update to the latest version of the AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

How you configure security credentials will depend on how you or your organization manages users. For instructions, see Authentication and access credentials in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

After installing and configuring the AWS CLI, you should have the following:

Install Node.js and programming language prerequisites

All AWS CDK developers, regardless of the supported programming language that you will use, require Node.js 14.15.0 or later. All supported programming languages use the same backend, which runs on Node.js. We recommend a version in active long-term support. If your organization has a different recommendation, follow their guidance.

Other programming language prerequisites depend on the language that you will use to develop AWS CDK applications:

TypeScript

• TypeScript 3.8 or later (npm -g install typescript)

JavaScript

No additional requirements

Python

• Python 3.7 or later including pip and virtualenv

Java

• Java Development Kit (JDK) 8 (a.k.a. 1.8) or later

• Apache Maven 3.5 or later

Java IDE recommended (we use Eclipse in some examples in this guide). IDE must be able to import Maven projects. Check to make sure that your project is set to use Java 1.8. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to the path where you have installed the JDK.

C#

.NET Core 3.1 or later, or .NET 6.0 or later.

Visual Studio 2019 (any edition) or Visual Studio Code recommended.

Go

Go 1.1.8 or later.

Next steps

To get started with the AWS CDK, see Getting started with the AWS CDK.