If you recently read about AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) you might ask yourself what it does and how it works in detail. Essentially it’s a new way of describing your infrastructure on AWS. It allows you to use programming languages to model your application.
This has a lot of benefits. For instance you can make use of construct libraries to avoid reinventing patterns.
You can write tests against your constructs to ensure security and other requirements and catch common mistakes.
This all sounds pretty good, but for many new starters and also engineers working since years with AWS infrastructure this can be challenging to learn.
To lower the entry barrier and allow engineers to collaboratively improve their CDK skills and solve problems together Philipp Garbe and me built https://play-with-cdk.com It’s a tool to write CDK code in the browser and immediately get the resulting CloudFormation output, which can then be deployed into your AWS account. It’s extremely easy to get started with CDK and share code in seconds.
To get started just open https://play-with-cdk.com and add some cdk code to the template shown in the editor.
Then press the run button on the right or use the Cmd / Cntrl + S shortcut.
Your YAML CloudFormation output will show up on the bottom.
You will also find a button to share a link to your code and the well-known Lauch Stack button which will lead you to the CloudFormation service in your AWS account.
To enhance this learning experience we are planning to add common application patterns and walkthroughs soon.
We want this to be a place where you can learn and try using CDK as easy as possible.
So go ahead, try it out and share your constructs with others. We are also happy to receive feedback and ideas. Just use the GitHub link on the top right and drop us an issue.