cdk-manager

This couples together three separate, but related CDK-related tasks:

• configuration of self-hosted CDK pipelines and deploying them
• CDK bootstrapping
• setting environment variables to interact with those pipelines or the environments those pipelines deploy (termed here "activating")

Assumed knowledge

• CDK's self-hosted pipelines: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/api/v2/docs/aws-cdk-lib.pipelines-readme.html
• CDK bootstrapping: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/v2/guide/bootstrapping.html
• Typescript, and in particular, generics: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/2/generics.html

Usage and getting started

Configuration is handled by extending the CdkManager class and implementing an assortment of methods to handle customisation.

import { Account, Instance, CdkManager } from 'cdk-manager';

interface Config {
    foo: boolean;
}

class MyCdkManager extends CdkManager<Config> {
    // customisation here, see docs below
}

const accounts: Array<Account> = [{
    name: 'account1',
    accountNumber: '1234',
}, {
    name: 'account2',
    accountNumber: '5678',
}];

const instances: Array<Instance<Config>> = [{
    applicationConfig: {
        foo: true,
    },
    accountName: 'account1',
    branchName: 'main',
    requiresApproval: true,
}, {
    applicationConfig: {
        foo: false,
    },
    accountName: 'account2',
    branchName: 'development',
    requiresApproval: false,
}];

export const manager = new MyCdkManager();

for (const account of accounts) {
    manager.addAccount(account);
}

for (const instance of instances) {
    manager.addInstance(instance);
}

Methods expected to be overridden

No methods are private, so any could be overridden if needed, but below is a list of the methods that likely need to be overridden.

Note also that the base CdkManager class is not abstract, so strictly, no methods need to be overridden, but some base implementations just throw an Error. This is by design as it allows, say, use of the pipelines-based features without requiring implementation of the methods for the bootstrapping features.

When implementing these methods yourself, you should replace A with the type parameter passed to CdkManager, eg Config in the sample above.

addPipelineCdkStack(app: cdk.App, account: Account, instance: Instance<A>): cdk.Stack

This is expected to be a subclass of cdk-manager.PipelineStack to allow for the self-hosted pipeline behaviour. See below.

getPipelineStackName(account: Account, instance: Instance<A>): string

Return the name of the pipeline stack, based on the account and the instance.

async getExtraActivationEnvironmentVariables(envVars: EnvironmentVariables, account: Account, instance?: Instance<A>): Promise<EnvironmentVariables>

Return any additional env-vars to be set when activating. This method is async to allow things like downloading executables, saving them to a directory and putting that directory in PATH.

getActivationDefaultAccountName(): string

The name of the account to activate if none is selected via command line flag.

getDefaultBootstrapDeploymentProfile(account: Account): string

Default AWS profile to use when bootstrapping.

getDefaultPipelineDeploymentProfile(account: Account, instance?: Instance<A>): string

Default AWS profile to use when deploying pipelines.

getDefaultInstanceProfile(account: Account, instance: Instance<A>): string

Default AWS profile to use when activating an instance.

getDefaultPipelineDeploymentRegion(account: Account, instance?: Instance<A>): string

Default AWS region to use when deploying pipelines.

getDefaultInstanceRegion(account: Account, instance: Instance<A>): string

Default AWS region to use when activating an instance.

Account

Property	Type	Required?	Notes
name	string	Yes	A meaningful and unique identifier
accountNumber	string	Yes	The AWS account number
cdkBootstrap.enabled	boolean	No	Whether to apply CDK bootstrapping to this account
cdkBootstrap.regions	string[]	Yes if enabled	List of regions to bootstrap
cdkBootstrap.minimumVersion	number	Yes if enabled	Minimum required CDK bootstrap version
cdkBootstrap.trustedAccountNames	string[]	Yes if enabled	List of account names to be trusted

Instance<A>

Property	Type	Required?	Notes
applicationConfig	A	Yes	The config you need to configure whatever you are deploying
accountName	string	Yes	The target account for deployment
requiresApproval	boolean	Yes	See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/latest/userguide/approvals.html
suffix	string	No	Suffix to prevent name collisions
branchName	string	Yes, unless sequenced	Source branch for the pipeline
sequencedInstances	SubInstance<A>	No	Instances to be deployed sequentially before this instance

Pipeline stack

If using the self-hosted pipeline feature, extend PipelineStack and return it in your CdkManager.addPipelineCdkStack.

Expected methods to be overridden

getSourceConnection(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: Instance<A>): pipelines.IFileSetProducer

This is expected to reference the source repository, eg using https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/api/v2/docs/aws-cdk-lib.pipelines.CodePipelineSource.html.

getInstallCommands(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: Instance<A>): Array<string>

Shell commands to run to install dependencies in the pipeline. These commands will be run relative to the root of the repository.

Eg, running npm ci.

Recommend referencing a script file, eg pipeline_hooks/install.sh, and putting the command in that file in your repo. This way if you push a change that changes these commands, the new commands will be run immediately and no pipeline self-mutate required. This is better than first running the old commands (as they are "baked into" the pipeline), then self-mutate updating the pipeline (assuming it worked), then the pipeline looping around.

getCommands(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: Instance<A>): Array<string>

Shell commands to run within the pipeline to build the pipeline stack. Eg running cdk synth [name of pipeline stack].

(For the same reasons as for getInstallCommands, recommend referencing a script file.)

addStacksToDeploymentStage(stage: Stage, accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: SubInstance<A>, codeBuildContext: CodeBuildContext): void

Add the stacks that you actually want the pipeline to deploy into the target account.

getStageProps(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: SubInstance<A>): StageProps

Props to pass to the Stage.

getCodeBuildOptions(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: Instance<A>): pipelines.CodeBuildOptions

Additional CodeBuild options. See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/api/v2/docs/aws-cdk-lib.pipelines.CodeBuildOptions.html for all possible options here.

Note that this does provide a default implementation to provide a sufficiently recent nodejs runtime.

getDockerCredentials(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: SubInstance<A>): Array<pipelines.DockerCredential>

Return Docker credentials to be used by the pipeline when building.

getPipelineSynthProjectAllowedRoleArns(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: Instance<A>, stackProps: StackProps): string[]

To allow the CDK pipeline to perform cross-account lookups, need to grant it permission to assume the CDK's lookup roles. The default implementation does this, so in most cases won't need to change this.

getOtherPipelineProps(accountConfig: Account, pipelineConfig: Instance<A>, stackProps: StackProps): Partial<pipelines.CodePipelineProps>

Any other props to pass to pipelines.CodePipeline.

Suffixes

An instance can have a suffix to allow multiple instances to be deployed to the same account without name collisions.

const instances: Array<Instance<Config>> = [{
    applicationConfig: {
        foo: true,
    },
    accountName: 'account1',
    branchName: 'dev-alice',
    suffix: 'dev-alice',
    requiresApproval: false,
}, {
    applicationConfig: {
        foo: true,
    },
    accountName: 'account1',
    branchName: 'dev-bob',
    suffix: 'dev-bob',
    requiresApproval: false,
// ...
}];

Sequenced instances

Can also have a single pipeline that deploys multiple instances in sequence:

const instances: Array<Instance<Config>> = [{
    applicationConfig: {
        foo: true,
    },
    accountName: 'production',
    branchName: 'production',
    requiresApproval: true,
    sequencedInstances: [{
        applicationConfig: {
            foo: true,
        },
        accountName: 'stage',
        requiresApproval: false,
    }],
// ...
}];

Here, the pipeline will deploy to stage. If that succeeds, will wait for approval and will then deploy to production.

When there are multiple sequenced instances, these will be deployed in the order they appear in sequencedInstances, first to last. Then the parent instance will be deployed.

There is no support for deeper nesting of instances as these would always get flattened in the pipeline anyway.

Command line tools

There are three command line tools that a CdkManager makes available:

• runPipelineApplyFromArgv, applies pipelines based on configured instances and accounts
• runBootstrapApplyFromArgv, applies bootstrapping based on configured accounts
• runActivateFromArgv, activates a selected instance and account

The examples show how to make these usable from npm run.