cdk synth

Synthesize a template from your app #

AWS CDK apps are effectively only a definition of your infrastructure using code. When CDK apps are executed, they produce (or “synthesize”, in CDK parlance) an AWS CloudFormation template for each stack defined in your application.

To synthesize a CDK app, use the cdk synth command. Let’s check out the template synthesized from the sample app:

The CDK CLI requires you to be in the same directory as your cdk.json file. If you have changed directories in your terminal, please navigate back now.

cdk synth

Will output the following CloudFormation template:

Resources:
  CdkWorkshopQueue50D9D426:
    Type: AWS::SQS::Queue
    Properties:
      VisibilityTimeout: 300
    Metadata:
      aws:cdk:path: CdkWorkshopStack/CdkWorkshopQueue/Resource
  CdkWorkshopQueuePolicyAF2494A5:
    Type: AWS::SQS::QueuePolicy
    Properties:
      PolicyDocument:
        Statement:
          - Action: sqs:SendMessage
            Condition:
              ArnEquals:
                aws:SourceArn:
                  Ref: CdkWorkshopTopicD368A42F
            Effect: Allow
            Principal:
              Service: sns.amazonaws.com
            Resource:
              Fn::GetAtt:
                - CdkWorkshopQueue50D9D426
                - Arn
        Version: "2012-10-17"
      Queues:
        - Ref: CdkWorkshopQueue50D9D426
    Metadata:
      aws:cdk:path: CdkWorkshopStack/CdkWorkshopQueue/Policy/Resource
  CdkWorkshopQueueCdkWorkshopStackCdkWorkshopTopicD7BE96438B5AD106:
    Type: AWS::SNS::Subscription
    Properties:
      Protocol: sqs
      TopicArn:
        Ref: CdkWorkshopTopicD368A42F
      Endpoint:
        Fn::GetAtt:
          - CdkWorkshopQueue50D9D426
          - Arn
    Metadata:
      aws:cdk:path: CdkWorkshopStack/CdkWorkshopQueue/CdkWorkshopStackCdkWorkshopTopicD7BE9643/Resource
  CdkWorkshopTopicD368A42F:
    Type: AWS::SNS::Topic
    Properties:
      DisplayName: My First Topic Yeah
    Metadata:
      aws:cdk:path: CdkWorkshopStack/CdkWorkshopTopic/Resource
  CDKMetadata:
    Type: AWS::CDK::Metadata
    Properties:
      Modules: aws-cdk=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/assets=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-cloudwatch=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-ec2=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-events=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-iam=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-kms=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-lambda=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-logs=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-s3=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-s3-assets=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-sns=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-sns-subscriptions=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-sqs=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/aws-ssm=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/core=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/cx-api=1.17.1,@aws-cdk/region-info=1.17.1,jsii-runtime=Java/1.8.0_202
    Condition: CDKMetadataAvailable
Conditions:
  CDKMetadataAvailable:
...

As you can see, this template includes four resources:

AWS::SQS::Queue - our queue
AWS::SQS::QueuePolicy - the IAM policy which allows this topic to send messages to the queue
AWS::SNS::Subscription - the subscription between the queue and the topic
AWS::SNS::Topic - our topic

The AWS::CDK::Metadata resource is automatically added by the toolkit to every stack. It is used by the AWS CDK team for analytics and to allow us to identify versions with security issues. See Version Reporting in the AWS CDK User Guide for more details. We will omit the metadata resource in diff views for the rest of this workshop