applets.rst

Applets

Note

Currently the |cdk| only supports applets published as JavaScript modules.

Applets are files in the YAML format that instantiate constructs directly, without writing any code. The structure of an applet file looks like this:

applets:
  Applet1:
    type: MODULE[:CLASS]
    properties:
      property1: value1
      property2: value2
      ...
  Applet2:
    type: MODULE[:CLASS]
    properties:
      ...

Every applet will be synthesized to its own stack, named after the key used in the applet definition.

Specifying the applet to load

An applet type specification looks like this:

applet: MODULE[:CLASS]

MODULE can be used to indicate:

• A local file, such as ./my-module (expects my-module.js in the same directory).
• A local module such as my-dependency (expects an NPM package at node_modules/my-dependency).
• A global module, such as @aws-cdk/aws-s3 (expects the package to have been globally installed using NPM).
• An NPM package, such as npm://some-package@1.2.3 (the version specifier may be omitted to refer to the latest version of the package).

CLASS should reference the name of a class exported by the indicated module. If the class name is omitted, Applet is used as the default class name.

Properties

Pass properties to the applet by specifying them in the properties object. The properties will be passed to the instantiation of the class in the type parameter.

Running

To run an applet, pass its YAML file directly as the --app argument to a cdk invocation:

cdk --app ./my-applet.yaml deploy

To avoid needing to specify --app for every invocation, make a cdk.json file and add in the application in the config as usual:

{
   "app": "./my-applet.yaml"
}