sam init - AWS Serverless Application Model
UsageOptionsExample

sam init

This page provides reference information for the AWS Serverless Application Model Command Line Interface (AWS SAM CLI) sam init command.

The sam init command provides options to initialize a new serverless application.

Usage

$ sam init <options>

Options

--app-template TEXT

The identifier of the managed application template that you want to use. If you're not sure, call sam init without options for an interactive workflow.

This parameter is required if --no-interactive is specified and --location is not provided.

This parameter is available only in AWS SAM CLI version 0.30.0 and later. Specifying this parameter with an earlier version results in an error.

--application-insights | --no-application-insights

Activate Amazon CloudWatch Application Insights monitoring for your application. To learn more, see Using CloudWatch Application Insights to monitor your AWS SAM serverless applications.

The default option is --no-application-insights.

--architecture, -a [ x86_64 | arm64 ]

The instruction set architecture for your application's Lambda functions. Specify one of x86_64 or arm64.

--base-image [ amazon/dotnet8-base | amazon/dotnet6-base | amazon/java21-base | amazon/java17-base | amazon/java11-base | amazon/nodejs22.x-base | amazon/nodejs20.x-base | amazon/nodejs18.x-base | amazon/nodejs16.x-base | amazon/python3.13-base | amazon/python3.12-base | amazon/python3.11-base | amazon/python3.10-base | amazon/python3.9-base | amazon/python3.8-base | amazon/ruby3.3-base | amazon/ruby3.2-base ]

The base image of your application. This option applies only when the package type is Image.

This parameter is required if --no-interactive is specified, --package-type is specified as Image, and --location is not specified.

--config-env TEXT

The environment name specifying the default parameter values in the configuration file to use. The default value is "default". For more information about configuration files, see AWS SAM CLI configuration file.

--config-file PATH

The path and file name of the configuration file containing default parameter values to use. The default value is "samconfig.toml" in the root of the project directory. For more information about configuration files, see AWS SAM CLI configuration file.

--debug

Turns on debug logging to print debug messages that the AWS SAM CLI generates, and to display timestamps.

--dependency-manager, -d [ gradle | mod | maven | bundler | npm | cli-package | pip ]

The dependency manager of your Lambda runtime.

--extra-content

Override any custom parameters in the template's cookiecutter.json configuration, for example, {"customParam1": "customValue1", "customParam2":"customValue2"}.

--help, -h

Shows this message and exits.

--location, -l TEXT

The template or application location (Git, Mercurial, HTTP/HTTPS, .zip file, path).

This parameter is required if --no-interactive is specified and --runtime, --name, and --app-template are not provided.

For Git repositories, you must use the location of the root of the repository.

For local paths, the template must be in either .zip file or Cookiecutter format.

--name, -n TEXT

The name of your project to be generated as a directory.

This parameter is required if --no-interactive is specified and --location is not provided.

--no-input

Disables Cookiecutter prompting and accepts the vcfdefault values that are defined in the template configuration.

--no-interactive

Disable interactive prompting for init parameters, and fail if any required values are missing.

--output-dir, -o PATH

The location where the initialized application is output.

--package-type [ Zip | Image ]

The package type of the example application. Zip creates a .zip file archive, and Image creates a container image.

--runtime, -r [ dotnet8 | dotnet6 | java21 | java17 | java11 | nodejs22.x | nodejs20.x | nodejs18.x | nodejs16.x | python3.13 | python3.12 | python3.11 | python3.10 | python3.9 | python3.8 | ruby3.3 | ruby3.2 ]

The Lambda runtime of your application. This option applies only when the package type is Zip.

This parameter is required if --no-interactive is specified, --package-type is specified as Zip, and --location is not specified.

--save-params

Save the parameters that you provide at the command line to the AWS SAM configuration file.

--tracing | --no-tracing

Activate AWS X-Ray tracing for your Lambda functions.

Example

For a detailed example and in-depth walkthrough on using the sam init subcommand, refer to Create your application in AWS SAM.