Page updated Feb 6, 2024

CLI

The Amplify Command Line Interface (CLI) is a unified toolchain to create, integrate, and manage the AWS cloud services for your app. Follow the steps in our guide to Install the Amplify CLI

Amplify CLI feature carousel

Key capabilities

Data modeling with GraphQL

At the core of most applications is one thing - the data. Easily being able to model and access data in your app allows you to focus on delivering core features and business value instead of architecting and re-architecting your back end.

The GraphQL Transform library allows you to deploy AWS AppSync GraphQL APIs with features like NoSQL databases, authentication, OpenSearch engines, lambda function resolvers, relationships, authorization, and more using GraphQL schema directives. Learn more

Multiple environments

Amplify CLI has support for multiple environments (e.g. dev, qa, and prod). When you initialize a project with the CLI, you create an Amplify backend environment. Every Amplify backend environment is a container for the categories added to your project. You can view all the backend environments as well as the categories added in the Amplify Console. Learn more

Extensibility

Ship fullstack web and mobile apps that you’ll never outgrow, powered by AWS Amplify. AWS Amplify’s extensibility features give developers the flexibility to customize their AWS backend and deployment capabilities. Reconfigure Amplify-generated backend resources to optimize for specific use cases, or modify Amplify's deployment operations to comply with your enterprise DevOps guidelines as your needs evolve.

  1. Override generated resources - Modify fine-grained backend resource settings and override via CDK. Amplify does the heavy lifting for you. For example, use Amplify to add new Cognito resources with default settings to your backend. Override just the settings you want with 'amplify override auth'. Override project-level (IAM roles), auth (Cognito), and storage (S3 and DynamoDB) resources.

  2. Add custom AWS resources - The Amplify CLI provides the ability to add custom AWS resources with CDK or CloudFormation. Running the 'amplify add custom' command in your Amplify project provides CDK or CloudFormation starter files along with mechanisms to reference other Amplify-generated resources.

  3. Import existing AWS resources - Integrate your existing resources, such as Amazon Cognito user pool and federated identities (identity pool), or Storage resources like DynamoDB + S3, into an Amplify project. For example, use your existing Cognito resources as an authentication mechanism for your GraphQL API, Storage (S3), and more.

  4. Command hooks - Use Command Hooks to execute custom scripts before, during, and after Amplify CLI commands ('amplify push', 'amplify api gql-compile', and more). Trigger validation checks, run credential scans, or clean-up build artifacts during deployment. Extend Amplify’s best-practice defaults to meet your security guidelines and operational requirements.

  5. Export Amplify project to CDK - Use Amplify with existing DevOps tools or integrate into your existing deployment systems. Amplify’s export feature lets you export your Amplify project to your preferred tooling using CDK. Export Amplify CLI build artifacts, including CloudFormation templates, GraphQL API resolver code, Lambda function assets, and client-side code generation.

Local mocking

Amplify supports running a local server for mocking and testing your application before pushing to the cloud with certain categories, including API (AWS AppSync), Storage (Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon S3), Functions (AWS Lambda), and Hosting. After running amplify init you can run the following to start a mock server. Learn more

1amplify mock

Serverless containers

Amplify supports AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate compute options for building applications giving a full spectrum of control and integration within your infrastructure. Lambda Functions can be used in your GraphQL and REST APIs in addition to triggers from event sources such as S3 and DynamoDB. Similarly you can bring a Dockerfile or a Docker Compose file to automatically build and deploy Serverless containers into Amazon Elastic Container Service. Learn more.

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