Getting Started with AWS CDK: My First Infrastructure as Code Project 🏗️

🧠 I built a Lambda, S3 bucket, and SQS queue using AWS CDK—here’s what I learned.

In my recent project, I had the opportunity to work with AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit) for the first time, and it completely changed the way I think about cloud infrastructure.

Instead of creating AWS resources manually through the console, I learned how to define everything using code. This approach—called Infrastructure as Code (IaC)—is not only faster, but also cleaner, more consistent, and easier to version and share.

In this post, I want to walk you through what I built: a simple AWS stack with:

• A Lambda function

• An S3 bucket

• An SQS queue

These three services formed the foundation of my serverless app, and writing them in code helped me understand AWS better than any tutorial ever did.

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🔧 Step 1: Setting Up My CDK Project

I started by installing the AWS CDK and initializing a new TypeScript project:

npm install -g aws-cdk
cdk init app --language typescript

Then I added the libraries for the services I needed:

npm install @aws-cdk/aws-lambda @aws-cdk/aws-s3 @aws-cdk/aws-sqs

At first, it felt a bit overwhelming, but once I saw how things fit together, it really started to click.

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🧱 Step 2: Building the Stack

Here’s the core of what I built, inside lib/simple-infra-stack.ts.

import * as cdk from 'aws-cdk-lib';
import { Construct } from 'constructs';
import * as lambda from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-lambda';
import * as s3 from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-s3';
import * as sqs from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-sqs';

export class SimpleInfraStack extends cdk.Stack {
  constructor(scope: Construct, id: string, props?: cdk.StackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

🪣 Creating an S3 Bucket

    const bucket = new s3.Bucket(this, 'MyBucket', {
      bucketName: 'my-simple-iac-bucket',
      removalPolicy: cdk.RemovalPolicy.DESTROY,
      autoDeleteObjects: true,
    });

At first, I didn’t realize how useful removalPolicy and autoDeleteObjects were. Since I was experimenting, it saved me a lot of time when I needed to clean up resources.

---

📨 Setting Up an SQS Queue

    const queue = new sqs.Queue(this, 'MyQueue', {
      queueName: 'my-iac-queue',
    });

I used this queue later to decouple services. Just knowing that it’s easy to drop in an SQS queue for scalability was eye-opening.

---

⚙️ Writing My First Lambda Function

    const lambdaFn = new lambda.Function(this, 'MyLambdaFunction', {
      runtime: lambda.Runtime.NODEJS_18_X,
      handler: 'index.handler',
      code: lambda.Code.fromInline(`
        exports.handler = async function(event) {
          console.log("Event received:", JSON.stringify(event));
          return {
            statusCode: 200,
            body: "Hello from Lambda!"
          };
        };
      `),
    });

This was the first time I saw how simple it could be to get a Lambda up and running with CDK. I used fromInline() just to test quickly, but now I understand how to point to real source files as well.

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🚀 Step 3: Deploying to AWS

After writing my stack, I compiled and deployed it:

npm run build
cdk deploy

It was incredible to see all three resources—bucket, queue, and Lambda—created in just a few seconds. I didn’t touch the AWS Console once.

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🧹 Cleaning Up

To avoid charges during testing, I cleaned up with:

cdk destroy

That one command deleted everything cleanly, including the objects in my S3 bucket thanks to the removal policy.

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✅ Final Thoughts

This was a real learning moment for me. I realized how powerful Infrastructure as Code is—especially with CDK. Here's a quick recap of which services I used and for what purpose: