Serverless UI

💻 🚀 ☁

Deploying Websites to AWS on Easy Mode

Serverless UI is a free, open source command-line utility for quickly building and deploying serverless applications on AWS

• Bring your own UI It doesn't matter if it's React, Vue, Svelte or JQuery. If it compiles down to static files, then it is supported.

• Serverless Functions Your functions become endpoints, automatically. Serverless UI deploys each function in your /functions directory as a Node.js lambda behind a CDN and API Gateway for an optimal blend of performance and scalability.

• Deploy Previews Automatically deploy each iteration of your application with a separate URL to continuously integrate and test with confidence.

• Custom Domains Quickly configure a custom domain to take advantage of production deploys!

• TypeScript Support Write your serverless functions in JavaScript or TypeScript. Either way, they'll be bundled down extremely quickly and deployed as Node.js 14 lambdas.

• Own your code Skip the 3rd Party services — get all of the benefits and security of a hosted AWS application, without going through a middleman. Deploy to a new AWS account, or an existing account and get up and running in five minutes!

What's in this Document

• What's in this Document
• 🚀 Get Up and Running in 5 Minutes
• 📖 CLI Reference
  • deploy
    • Options
    • Examples
  • configure-domain
    • Options
    • Examples
    • Additional Steps
• Continuous Integration
  • GitHub Actions
• 👩‍🔬 Experimental Features
  • __experimental_privateS3
• 👩‍💻 Advanced Use Cases
  • Serverless UI Advanced Example
• FAQ
• License

🚀 Get Up and Running in 5 Minutes

You can get a new Serverless UI site deployed to you AWS account in just a few steps:

1. AWS Prerequisites

   In order to deploy to AWS, you'll have to configure your machine with local credentials. You'll find the best instructions here.

2. Install the Serverless UI Command-Line Interface

   npm install -g @serverlessui/cli

3. Deploy your static website

   Finally, tell the Serverless UI where to find your website's static files.

   sui deploy --dir="dist"

📖 CLI Reference

1. deploy
2. configure-domain

deploy

sui deploy

Options

Option	Description	Default
--dir	The directory of your website's static files	"dist"
--functions	The directory of the functions to deploy as endpoints	"functions"
--prod	Custom Domains only: false will deploy a preview	false

Note: The --dir directory should be only static files. You may need to run a build step prior to deploying

Examples

• Deploy a preview of static website in a build directory with no functions

sui deploy --dir="build"
...
❯ Website Url: https://xxxxx.cloudfront.net

• Deploy a preview of static website with serverless functions

sui deploy --dir="build" --functions="lambdas"
...
❯ Website Url: https://xxxxx.cloudfront.net
❯ API Url: https://xxxxx.cloudfront.net/api/my-function-name
❯ API Url: https://xxxxx.cloudfront.net/api/my-other-function-name

• Production deploy

  Note: A custom domain must be configured for production deploys. See configure-domain

sui deploy --prod --dir="build" --functions="lambdas"
...
❯ Website Url: https://www.my-domain.com
❯ API Url: https://www.my-domain.com/api/my-function-name
❯ API Url: https://www.my-domain.com/api/my-other-function-name

configure-domain

This step only needs to be completed once, but it may take anywhere from 20 minutes - 48 hours to fully propogate

sui configure-domain [--domain]

Options

Option	Description	Default
--domain	Your custom domain	None

Examples

Deploy a Hosted Zone and Certificate to us-east-1 (required region for Cloudfront)

sui configure-domain --domain="serverlessui.app"

Additional Steps

A minute or two after running this command, the deploy will "hang" while trying to validate the domain prior to creating the wildcard certificate.

1. Navigate to Route53

   Find your Hosted Zone and take note of the Zone Id and Name Servers

   

   

2. Update the Nameservers on your Domain Registrar's website (eg. Namecheap)

   

3. Wait

   The DNS resolution can be as quick as 10 minutes or take up to 48 hours. After some time, the Serverless UI command may timeout, but running it again should pick up where it left off.

4. Navigate to Certificate Manager

   After the configure-domain command has completed successfully, navigate to Certificate Manager and take note of the Certificate Arn (eg. "arn:aws:acm:us-east-1:ACCOUNT_ID:certificate/xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxx")

5. Create a Serverless UI config file

   Place the config file in the root of your project

   serverlessui.config.js

   module.exports = {
     domain: "serverlessui.app",
     zoneId: "Z10011111YYYYGGGRRR",
     certificateArn:
       "arn:aws:acm:us-east-1:ACCOUNT_ID:certificate/xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxx",
   };

Continuous Integration

Since Serverless UI is a command-line tool available via npm, it will work in almost any CI environment.

GitHub Actions

Note: Checkout the action in this repo for a live example https://github.com/JakePartusch/serverlessui/actions

name: Serverless UI Build & Deploy Preview

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  deploy-pr-preview:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Use Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: "12.x"
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build
      - name: Configure AWS Credentials
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
        with:
          aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
          aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
          aws-region: us-west-2
      - run: npm install -g @serverlessui/cli
      - run: sui deploy --dir="build"
      - name: Add PR Comment
        uses: actions/github-script@v3
        with:
          github-token: ${{secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN}}
          script: |
            const outputs = require(`${process.env.GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/cdk.out/outputs.json`);
            const stackName = Object.keys(outputs).find((key) =>
              key.startsWith("ServerlessUI")
            );
            const baseUrlKey = Object.keys(outputs[stackName]).find((key) =>
              key.startsWith("ServerlessUIBaseUrl")
            );
            github.issues.createComment({
              issue_number: context.issue.number,
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              body: `✅ Your deploy preview is ready: ${outputs[stackName][baseUrlKey]}`,
            });

👩‍🔬 Experimental Features

In order to use experimental features, a serverlessui.config.js file must exist at the base of the project.

__experimental_privateS3

This experimental feature allows the configuration of a private S3 bucket — which may be desired for enhanced security. This feature can be enabled in serverlessui.config.js:

module.exports = {
  __experimental_privateS3: true,
};

👩‍💻 Advanced Use Cases

For existing serverless projects or those that may have additional CloudFormation and/or CDK infrastructure, Serverless UI provides CDK constructs for each of the cli actions:

import { ServerlessUI, DomainCertificate } from '@serverlessui/construct;

Serverless UI Advanced Example

For a full-featured example, check out: https://github.com/JakePartusch/serverlessui-advanced-example

const { functions } = new ServerlessUI(this, "ServerlessUI", {
  buildId: "advanced-example",
  uiSources: [Source.asset(`${__dirname}/../build`)],
  apiEntries: [`${__dirname}/../functions/graphql.ts`],
  apiEnvironment: {
    TABLE_NAME: table.tableName,
  },
  domain: {
    domainName: "serverlessui.app",
    hostedZone: HostedZone.fromHostedZoneAttributes(this, "HostedZone", {
      hostedZoneId: "Z1XXXXXXXXXXXXX",
      zoneName: "serverlessui.app",
    }),
    certificate: Certificate.fromCertificateArn(
      this,
      "Certificate",
      "arn:aws:acm:us-east-1:xxxxxxxxxx:certificate/xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx"
    ),
  },
});

FAQ

• Q. How is this different than Netlify or Vercel?
  • Serverless UI allows you to enjoy the benefits of pre-configured infrastructure without going through a middleman. This allows for fewer accounts, tighter security and seamless integration with a wealth of AWS services. Additionally, you receive these benefits "at cost" since this is deployed directly to your AWS account.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.