Amazon Builders' Library FAQs

The Amazon Builders’ Library is a collection of living articles that describe how Amazon develops, architects, releases, and operates technology. The content in The Builders’ Library is written by Amazon’s senior technical leaders and engineers covering topics across architecture, software delivery, and operations. For example, readers can see how Amazon automates software delivery to achieve over 150 million deployments a year or how Amazon’s engineers implement principles such as shuffle sharding to build resilient systems that are highly available and fault tolerant.

The Builders’ Library provides readers with a detailed description of how Amazon builds and operates technology. The Builders’ Library is grounded in real-world practices used by Amazon every day. Anyone can use The Builders’ Library as a reference to understand Amazon’s approach to developing, architecting, releasing, and operating services.

We do not believe there is one right way to build software. The Builders’ Library describes Amazon’s current best practices. What works for Amazon may not be ideal for every company or situation. Even within Amazon, teams implement different optimal practices based on the situation, constraints, and the needs of their customers. Technology is constantly changing and what is a best practice today may not be the best practice tomorrow.

The Builders’ Library is free and accessible to anyone with an internet connection–no AWS account is needed.

Content is labeled based on the depth of specificity. The 200 level means it is high-level content with the purpose of explaining how several concepts fit within a broader topic area. Typically, there will be links to other content that provides more specificity within the topics. By contrast, 400-level content dives deep into the details of a single topic. The 300-level content represents a balance between 200- and 400-level content, with most concepts being fully explained, but with some opportunity to dive deeper into sub-topics.

The Builders’ Library topics are written by Amazon’s senior engineers and technical executives with years of experience on the topic. Each article contains a byline and a link to more information about the author.

We will be holding interactive sessions with The Builders’ Library authors and the community. Subscribe to our mailing list to hear about upcoming community events.

Yes. We will continue to release new content regularly.

You can subscribe to our mailing list. We release new content regularly and will notify our subscribers of the new content. Additionally, we have a “new” label on the articles listed on aws.amazon.com/builders-library.

AWS Well-Architected provides advice and guidance for building on the cloud. The Builders’ Library describes the lessons learned on fundamental distributed systems design from building Amazon and AWS.

Currently The Builders’ Library is limited to Amazon’s practices. However, we plan to include alternative approaches based on our customers’ and partners’ experiences in the future. Please reach out to your account manager or solutions architect to express your interest.

Please reach out to your solutions architect or account manager for assistance finding the appropriate next step for your organization.

No. The practices shared in The Builders’ Library are intended to be available for anyone–similar to any other public case study.