How AWS SAM works

AWS SAM consists of two primary components you use to create your serverless application:

To express resources, event source mappings, and other properties that define your serverless application, you define resources and develop your application in the AWS SAM template and other files in your AWS SAM project. You use the AWS SAM CLI to run commands on your AWS SAM project, which is how you initialize, build, test, and deploy your serverless application.

What is the AWS SAM template specification?

The AWS SAM template specification is an open-source framework that you can use to define and manage your serverless application infrastructure code. The AWS SAM template specification is:

What is the AWS SAM project and AWS SAM template?

The AWS SAM project includes the AWS SAM template which contains the AWS SAM template specification. This specification is the open-source framework that you use to define your serverless application infrastructure on AWS, with some additional components that make them easier to work with. In this sense, AWS SAM templates are an extension of AWS CloudFormation templates.

Here’s an example of a basic serverless application. This application processes requests to get all items from a database through an HTTP request. It consists of the following parts:

This application's infrastructure code can be defined in the following AWS SAM template:

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Transform: AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
Resources:
  getAllItemsFunction:
    Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
    Properties:
      Handler: src/get-all-items.getAllItemsHandler
      Runtime: nodejs20.x
      Events:
        Api:
          Type: HttpApi
          Properties:
            Path: /
            Method: GET
    Connectors:
      MyConn:
        Properties:
          Destination:
            Id: SampleTable
          Permissions:
            - Read
  SampleTable:
    Type: AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable

In 23 lines of code, the following infrastructure is defined:

To provision this infrastructure, the template is deployed to AWS CloudFormation. During deployment, AWS SAM transforms the 23 lines of code into the AWS CloudFormation syntax required to generate these resources in AWS. The transformed AWS CloudFormation template contains over 200 lines of code!

{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Resources": {
    "getAllItemsFunction": {
      "Type": "AWS::Lambda::Function",
      "Metadata": {
        "SamResourceId": "getAllItemsFunction"
      },
      "Properties": {
        "Code": {
          "S3Bucket": "aws-sam-cli-managed-default-samclisourcebucket-1a4x26zbcdkqr",
          "S3Key": "what-is-app/a6f856abf1b2c4f7488c09b367540b5b"
        },
        "Handler": "src/get-all-items.getAllItemsHandler",
        "Role": {
          "Fn::GetAtt": [
            "getAllItemsFunctionRole",
            "Arn"
          ]
        },
        "Runtime": "nodejs12.x",
        "Tags": [
          {
            "Key": "lambda:createdBy",
            "Value": "SAM"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "getAllItemsFunctionRole": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::Role",
      "Properties": {
        "AssumeRolePolicyDocument": {
          "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Action": [
                "sts:AssumeRole"
              ],
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Principal": {
                "Service": [
                  "lambda.amazonaws.com"
                ]
              }
            }
          ]
        },
        "ManagedPolicyArns": [
          "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole"
        ],
        "Tags": [
          {
            "Key": "lambda:createdBy",
            "Value": "SAM"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "getAllItemsFunctionApiPermission": {
      "Type": "AWS::Lambda::Permission",
      "Properties": {
        "Action": "lambda:InvokeFunction",
        "FunctionName": {
          "Ref": "getAllItemsFunction"
        },
        "Principal": "apigateway.amazonaws.com",
        "SourceArn": {
          "Fn::Sub": [
            "arn:${AWS::Partition}:execute-api:${AWS::Region}:${AWS::AccountId}:${__ApiId__}/${__Stage__}/GET/",
            {
              "__ApiId__": {
                "Ref": "ServerlessHttpApi"
              },
              "__Stage__": "*"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    "ServerlessHttpApi": {
      "Type": "AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Api",
      "Properties": {
        "Body": {
          "info": {
            "version": "1.0",
            "title": {
              "Ref": "AWS::StackName"
            }
          },
          "paths": {
            "/": {
              "get": {
                "x-amazon-apigateway-integration": {
                  "httpMethod": "POST",
                  "type": "aws_proxy",
                  "uri": {
                    "Fn::Sub": "arn:${AWS::Partition}:apigateway:${AWS::Region}:lambda:path/2015-03-31/functions/${getAllItemsFunction.Arn}/invocations"
                  },
                  "payloadFormatVersion": "2.0"
                },
                "responses": {}
              }
            }
          },
          "openapi": "3.0.1",
          "tags": [
            {
              "name": "httpapi:createdBy",
              "x-amazon-apigateway-tag-value": "SAM"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    "ServerlessHttpApiApiGatewayDefaultStage": {
      "Type": "AWS::ApiGatewayV2::Stage",
      "Properties": {
        "ApiId": {
          "Ref": "ServerlessHttpApi"
        },
        "StageName": "$default",
        "Tags": {
          "httpapi:createdBy": "SAM"
        },
        "AutoDeploy": true
      }
    },
    "SampleTable": {
      "Type": "AWS::DynamoDB::Table",
      "Metadata": {
        "SamResourceId": "SampleTable"
      },
      "Properties": {
        "AttributeDefinitions": [
          {
            "AttributeName": "id",
            "AttributeType": "S"
          }
        ],
        "KeySchema": [
          {
            "AttributeName": "id",
            "KeyType": "HASH"
          }
        ],
        "BillingMode": "PAY_PER_REQUEST"
      }
    },
    "getAllItemsFunctionMyConnPolicy": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::ManagedPolicy",
      "Metadata": {
        "aws:sam:connectors": {
          "getAllItemsFunctionMyConn": {
            "Source": {
              "Type": "AWS::Serverless::Function"
            },
            "Destination": {
              "Type": "AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable"
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "Properties": {
        "PolicyDocument": {
          "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                "dynamodb:GetItem",
                "dynamodb:Query",
                "dynamodb:Scan",
                "dynamodb:BatchGetItem",
                "dynamodb:ConditionCheckItem",
                "dynamodb:PartiQLSelect"
              ],
              "Resource": [
                {
                  "Fn::GetAtt": [
                    "SampleTable",
                    "Arn"
                  ]
                },
                {
                  "Fn::Sub": [
                    "${DestinationArn}/index/*",
                    {
                      "DestinationArn": {
                        "Fn::GetAtt": [
                          "SampleTable",
                          "Arn"
                        ]
                      }
                    }
                  ]
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        "Roles": [
          {
            "Ref": "getAllItemsFunctionRole"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

By using AWS SAM, you define 23 lines of infrastructure code. AWS SAM transforms your code into the 200+ lines of AWS CloudFormation code necessary to provision your application.

What is the AWS SAM CLI?

The AWS SAM CLI is a command line tool that you can use with AWS SAM templates and supported third-party integrations to build and run your serverless applications. Use the AWS SAM CLI to:

The AWS SAM CLI is best utilized when used with AWS SAM and AWS CloudFormation templates. It also works with third-party products such as Terraform.

Initialize a new project

Select from starter templates or choose a custom template location to begin a new project.

Here, we use the sam init command to initialize a new application project. We select the Hello World Example project to start with. The AWS SAM CLI downloads a starter template and creates our project folder directory structure.

For more details, see Create your application in AWS SAM.

Build your application for deployment

Package your function dependencies and organize your project code and folder structure to prepare for deployment.

Here, we use the sam build command to prepare our application for deployment. The AWS SAM CLI creates a .aws-samdirectory and organizes our application dependencies and files there for deployment.

For more details, see Build your application.

Perform local debugging and testing

On your local machine, simulate events, test APIs, invoke functions, and more to debug and test your application.

Here, we use the sam local invoke command to invoke our HelloWorldFunction locally. To accomplish this, the AWS SAM CLI creates a local container, builds our function, invokes it, and outputs the results. You can use an application like Docker to run containers on your machine.

For more details, see Test your application and Debug your application.

Deploy your application

Configure your application's deployment settings and deploy to the AWS Cloud to provision your resources.

Here, we use the sam deploy --guided command to deploy our application through an interactive flow. The AWS SAM CLI guides us through configuring our application's deployment settings, transforms our template into AWS CloudFormation, and deploys to AWS CloudFormation to create our resources.

For more details, see Deploy your application and resources.

Configure CI/CD deployment pipelines

Create secure continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, using a supported CI/CD system.

Here, we use the sam pipeline init --bootstrap command to configure a CI/CD deployment pipeline for our application. The AWS SAM CLI guides us through our options and generates the AWS resources and configuration file to use with our CI/CD system.

For more details, see Deploy with CI/CD systems and pipelines.

Monitor and troubleshoot your application in the cloud

View important information about your deployed resources, gather logs, and utilize built-in monitoring tools such as AWS X-Ray.

Here, we use the sam list command to view our deployed resources. We get our API endpoint and invoke it, which triggers our function. Then, we use sam logs to view our function's logs.

For more details, see Monitor your application.

Sync local changes to the cloud as you develop

As you develop on your local machine, automatically sync changes to the cloud. Quickly see your changes and perform testing and validation in the cloud.

Here, we use the sam sync --watch command to have the AWS SAM CLI watch for local changes. We modify our HelloWorldFunction code and the AWS SAM CLI automatically detects the change and deploys our updates to the cloud.

Test supported resources in the cloud

Invoke and pass events to supported resources in the cloud.

Here, we use the sam remote invoke command to test a deployed Lambda function in the cloud. We invoke our Lambda function and receive its logs and response. With our Lambda function configured to stream responses, the AWS SAM CLI streams its response back in real time.

Learn more

To continue learning about AWS SAM, see the following resources:

Next steps

If this is your first time using AWS SAM, see Getting started with AWS SAM.