How to Trigger an AWS Lambda Function from an S3 Put Event

In this post, we are going to use the AWS CDK to build an AWS Lambda Function that is triggered from an AWS S3 Put request.

All of the code can be found in this repository.

Setup

We need to run a few commands to set up our CDK app.

mkdir how-to-trigger-lambda-from-s3
cd how-to-trigger-lambda-from-s3
npx cdk init app --language typescript

This should give you the following directory structure.

Also, make sure you have your AWS CLI configured. For more information follow the AWS CLI quickstart guide.

Create an S3 Bucket

Install the S3 CDK package.

npm i @aws-cdk/aws-s3

Open lib/how-to-trigger-lambda-from-s3-stack.ts, add a new S3 Bucket, and deploy.

import * as cdk from '@aws-cdk/core';
import * as s3 from '@aws-cdk/aws-s3';

export class HowToTriggerLambdaFromS3Stack extends cdk.Stack {
  constructor(scope: cdk.Construct, id: string, props?: cdk.StackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

    const bucket = new s3.Bucket(this, 'OurBucket', {
      /**
       * The following properties ensure the bucket is properly 
       * deleted when we run cdk destroy */
      autoDeleteObjects: true,
      removalPolicy: cdk.RemovalPolicy.DESTROY
    })
  }
}

npm run cdk deploy

You may need to confirm some IAM changes.

Create a Lambda

Install the Lambda CDK package.

npm i @aws-cdk/aws-lambda

Deploying a Lambda function requires bootstrapping your CDK app which gives us an S3 bucket where our Lambda's source code will live. This is a one-time operation.

npm run cdk bootstrap

Create src/index.js and paste the following code

exports.handler = async (event) => {
  event.Records.forEach((record) => {
    console.log('Event Name: %s', record.eventName);
    console.log('S3 Request: %j', record.s3);
  });
};

Open lib/how-to-trigger-lambda-from-s3-stack.ts, add a new Lambda function, and deploy.

import * as cdk from '@aws-cdk/core';
import * as s3 from '@aws-cdk/aws-s3';
import * as lambda from '@aws-cdk/aws-lambda';

export class HowToTriggerLambdaFromS3Stack extends cdk.Stack {
  constructor(scope: cdk.Construct, id: string, props?: cdk.StackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

    const bucket = new s3.Bucket(this, 'OurBucket', {
      /**
       * The following properties ensure the bucket is properly 
       * deleted when we run cdk destroy */
      autoDeleteObjects: true,
      removalPolicy: cdk.RemovalPolicy.DESTROY
    });

    const lambdaFunction = new lambda.Function(this, 'Function', {
      code: lambda.Code.fromAsset('src'),
      handler: 'index.handler',
      functionName: 'BucketPutHandler',
      runtime: lambda.Runtime.NODEJS_12_X,
    });
  }
}

Deploy again ...

npm run cdk deploy

You may need to confirm more IAM changes.

Create the Event Source

Install the Lambda Event Sources CDK package.

npm i @aws-cdk/aws-lambda-event-sources

Open lib/how-to-trigger-lambda-from-s3-stack.ts, add a new S3EventSource to the Lambda Function.

import * as cdk from '@aws-cdk/core';
import * as s3 from '@aws-cdk/aws-s3';
import * as lambda from '@aws-cdk/aws-lambda';
import * as lambdaEventSources from '@aws-cdk/aws-lambda-event-sources';

export class HowToTriggerLambdaFromS3Stack extends cdk.Stack {
  constructor(scope: cdk.Construct, id: string, props?: cdk.StackProps) {
    super(scope, id, props);

    const bucket = new s3.Bucket(this, 'OurBucket', {
      /**
       * The following properties ensure the bucket is properly 
       * deleted when we run cdk destroy */
      autoDeleteObjects: true,
      removalPolicy: cdk.RemovalPolicy.DESTROY
    });

    const lambdaFunction = new lambda.Function(this, 'Function', {
      code: lambda.Code.fromAsset('src'),
      handler: 'index.handler',
      functionName: 'BucketPutHandler',
      runtime: lambda.Runtime.NODEJS_12_X,
    });

    const s3PutEventSource = new lambdaEventSources.S3EventSource(bucket, {
      events: [
        s3.EventType.OBJECT_CREATED_PUT
      ]
    });

    lambdaFunction.addEventSource(s3PutEventSource);
  }
}

One more deployment ...

npm run cdk deploy

One last time, you may need to approve IAM changes.

Testing

Create a text file that we will use to upload to the S3 bucket.

echo "This is a test" > testFile.txt

Use the AWS CLI to upload this file into our S3 bucket from earlier. Your bucket name will vary, but for me, this command looks like this.

aws s3 cp ./testFile.txt s3://howtotriggerlambdafroms3stack-ourbucket48caf57c-1p9g74rol1cza/testFile.txt

Verify that the Lambda was executed by looking in CloudWatch. Find the LogGroup named /aws/lambda/BucketPutHandler and open up the latest LogStream. You should see some log messages that look similar to this.

Clean Up

Don't forget to delete your stack when you are finished!

npm run cdk destroy

Thanks for reading! If you found this useful, please follow me on Twitter! https://twitter.com/thealexkates