Serverless Full Stack WebApp Starter Kit

A serverless full-stack web app template you copy and grow into your own app. Not a framework — you own every file.

Copy, deploy with a single command, then replace the sample todo app with your own features.

What you get

1. Working sample app — A todo app with authentication, DB CRUD, async jobs, and real-time notifications wired end-to-end. Designed as a readable reference for AI coding agents and humans alike.
2. End-to-end type safety — Types flow from Prisma ORM through Zod schemas and Server Actions to React components in a single chain.
3. Serverless from day one — Fully serverless architecture starting under $10/month that scales without operational overhead.
4. Integrated DB migration — Schema migration is integrated into the CDK deploy process via CDK Trigger, providing a development-to-production path out of the box.

You can refer to the blog article for more details (also Japanese version).

Sample app

The kit includes a simple todo app to demonstrate how all components work together.

Sign in/up page redirects to Cognito Managed Login.

 

After login, you can add, delete, and manage your todo items. The translate button triggers an async job and pushes a real-time notification to refresh the page.

Architecture

Service	Role
Aurora PostgreSQL Serverless v2	Relational database with Prisma ORM
Next.js App Router on Lambda	Unified frontend and backend
CloudFront + Lambda Function URL	Content delivery with response streaming
Cognito	Authentication (email by default, OIDC federation supported)
AppSync Events + Lambda	Async jobs and real-time notifications
EventBridge	Scheduled jobs
CloudWatch + S3	Access logging
CDK	Infrastructure as Code

Fully serverless — high cost efficiency, scalability, and minimal operational overhead.

Getting started

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (>= v20)
• Docker
• AWS CLI with a configured IAM profile

1. Copy the kit

Use the GitHub template ("Use this template" button) or clone and copy:

git clone https://github.com/aws-samples/serverless-full-stack-webapp-starter-kit.git my-app
cd my-app
rm -rf .git && git init
# Record the kit version in your initial commit for future reference
git add -A && git commit -m "Initial commit from serverless-full-stack-webapp-starter-kit vX.Y.Z"

2. Customize (optional)

• Update the application name (stack name, tags) in cdk/bin/cdk.ts
• Set a custom domain in cdk/bin/cdk.ts
• Remove cdk.context.json from cdk/.gitignore and commit it (recommended for your own project)
• Switch from prisma db push to prisma migrate if you need migration history

3. Deploy

cd cdk
npm ci
npx cdk bootstrap
npx cdk deploy --all

Initial deployment takes about 20 minutes. After success, you'll see:

 ✅  ServerlessWebappStarterKitStack

Outputs:
ServerlessWebappStarterKitStack.FrontendDomainName = https://web.example.com
ServerlessWebappStarterKitStack.DatabaseSecretsCommand = aws secretsmanager get-secret-value ...
ServerlessWebappStarterKitStack.DatabasePortForwardCommand = aws ssm start-session ...

Open the FrontendDomainName URL to try the sample app.

Note: DatabasePortForwardCommand establishes a local connection to your RDS database, and DatabaseSecretsCommand retrieves database credentials from Secrets Manager.

4. Add your own features

See AGENTS.md for development guide — local development setup, authentication patterns, async job setup, DB migration, and coding conventions.

To add social sign-in (Google, Facebook, etc.), see Add social sign-in to a user pool.

Maintenance policy

This kit follows Semantic Versioning. Since users copy (not fork) this kit, breaking changes are introduced as new major versions without a lengthy deprecation cycle.

Cost

Sample cost breakdown for us-east-1, one month, with cost-optimized configuration:

Service	Usage Details	Monthly Cost [USD]
Aurora Serverless v2	0.5 ACU × 2 hour/day, 1GB storage	3.6
Cognito	100 MAU	1.5
AppSync Events	100 events/month, 10 hours connection/user/month	0.02
Lambda	1024MB × 200ms/request	0.15
Lambda@Edge	128MB × 50ms/request	0.09
VPC	NAT Instance (t4g.nano) × 1	3.02
EventBridge	Scheduler 100 jobs/month	0.0001
CloudFront	Data transfer 1kB/request	0.01
Total		8.49

Assumes 100 users/month, 1000 requests/user. Costs could be further reduced with Free Tier.

Clean up

cd cdk
npx cdk destroy --force

Maintainers

• Kenji Kono (konokenj)

Core contributors

• Masashi Tomooka (tmokmss) — original author
• Kazuho Cryer-Shinozuka (badmintoncryer)

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Contributors (human and AI) must read .serverless-full-stack-webapp-starter-kit/design/DESIGN_PRINCIPLES.md before making changes. It defines the design decisions and constraints that govern this kit.

Security

See CONTRIBUTING for more information.

License

This library is licensed under the MIT-0 License. See the LICENSE file.