The frontend web and mobile app developer’s guide to AWS re:Invent 2023

ICYMI – AWS re:Invent is only a week away! We can’t wait to join thousands of builders in person and virtually for another exciting event. Don’t forget to register here.

In this blog post, we’re highlighting the most exciting sessions for technology leaders and frontend, full-stack, and backend developers. Sessions span intermediate (200) through expert (400) levels of content in a mix of interactive chalk talks, hands-on workshops, code talks, and lecture-style breakout sessions. We’ll cover the latest AWS tools, services, and features that help iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, TypeScript, and JavaScript developers to build and test their applications. Attendees will leave re:Invent with the latest strategies to accelerate development, use generative AI to improve developer productivity, modernize APIs with GraphQL, and build real-time, interactive experiences for users.

What is AWS re:Invent?

AWS re:Invent is a learning conference for the global cloud computing community. The event kicks off on November 27 and continues through December 1, 2023. The in-person event features exciting keynote announcements, networking, training and certification opportunities, 2,000+ technical sessions, the Vendor Expo, fun after-hours events, and tons more.

Where is AWS re:invent 2023?

re:Invent is back in Las Vegas, Nevada! Check out the campus page for more information on venues, hotels, and how to get around. Can’t make the trip? Attend virtually! The virtual re:Invent will include a livestream of keynotes and innovation talks, access to breakout sessions, and more. For more information or to register for the virtual re:Invent, visit the Register page.

What AWS services are featured in frontend web and mobile (FWM) sessions?

Sessions IDs beginning with “FWM” will highlight the latest features and capabilities from AWS Device Farm, AWS Amplify, and AWS AppSync. Many sessions will also cover on exciting topics like generative AI and event-driven architecture, and showcase integrations with services like Amazon Bedrock, Amazon CodeWhisperer, and Amazon CodeCatalyst.

Frontend web and mobile breakout sessions

What are breakout sessions?

AWS re:Invent breakout sessions are lecture-style and 60 minutes long. These sessions are delivered by AWS experts and typically reserve 10–15 minutes for Q&A at the end. Breakout sessions are recorded and made available on-demand after the event.

Level 200 — Intermediate

FWM201 | What’s new with AWS AppSync for enterprise API developers

AWS AppSync is a simple way to connect your frontend web and mobile applications to data and events with serverless GraphQL and pub/sub APIs. Join this session to learn about all the exciting new AWS AppSync features released this year that make it even more seamless for API developers to realize the benefits of GraphQL for application development.

FWM202 | Improve your mobile and web app quality using AWS Device Farm

In this session, learn how you can improve the quality of your mobile and web apps by running tests on real devices at scale with AWS Device Farm. Hear from Riot Games, a leading game developer and publisher, about how they use Device Farm to streamline their mobile app testing process, improve the quality of their mobile games and SDKs, run automated and manual tests on real devices in the cloud, identify and fix issues faster, and release updates more frequently. Hear how Riot takes advantage of the newly released support for VPC connectivity to Private Devices to securely access AWS Device Farm from within their own VPC, ensuring that their testing data remains private and secure.

FWM203 | Go from frontend to full-stack development faster with AWS Amplify

Web developers need to deliver differentiating experiences to more users faster than ever before. To build secure, reliable, and scalable applications at 10 times the speed requires solutions that empower developers to get started easily, ship quickly, and iterate rapidly. In this session, hear exciting updates on how AWS Amplify is evolving to meet the needs of modern 10x web developers.

FWM204 | Implement real-time event patterns with WebSockets and AWS AppSync

AWS AppSync makes it easier for developers to build applications that consume real-time data updates and events, like live sports scores and stats, group chat messages, prices, or location and schedule updates. With AppSync-managed WebSocket channels, you can easily scale to connect millions of users and deliver billions of messages. In this session, learn how the PGA Tour uses AWS AppSync to deliver real-time event updates to their app users; review new features, like enhanced filtering options and native integration with Amazon EventBridge; and provide a sneak peek at what’s coming next.

FWM205* | AWS Amplify: Scale your web and mobile app development and delivery

Whether you have established patterns and resources or are new to the cloud, AWS Amplify provides frontend web and mobile developers with intuitive tools to build scalable, maintainable full-stack applications on AWS. This session offers an in-depth exploration of Amplify’s capabilities, how to integrate them with existing deployment tools and databases, and how to fully customize the resulting AWS backend using CDK. Walk through real-world scenarios and get an introduction to new enterprise-focused capabilities that make it easier than ever to build, deploy, and host secure, scalable cloud-connected applications with AWS

*session will also be simulcast on Nov. 27 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM (PST) at re:Invent Content hubs.

Level 300 — Advanced

FWM306 | What’s new for web & mobile app developers with AWS Amplify

AWS Amplify makes it easy for frontend web and mobile developers to build full-stack applications in hours with minimal cloud expertise. In this session, walk through Amplify capabilities, including how you can easily configure a backend with authentication, data, and storage; how you can create a frontend UI from a Figma design or using new custom components; and how you can host static and server-side rendered web applications with Next.js. Learn about exciting new features that make it even easier for developers and teams to accelerate the pace of their innovation, leverage data to build differentiated application experiences, and give even individual SDEs the power of a virtual team.

FWM313* | Using federated GraphQL APIs for backend-for-frontend architectures

AWS AppSync Merged APIs help platform and backend teams combine multiple GraphQL APIs, which in turn connect to multiple data sources, microservices, and events, into a single backend-for-frontend (BFF) endpoint for developers. In this session, explore how organizations like Capital One use GraphQL to simplify data access across thousands of data sources and microservices

*session will also be simulcast on Nov. 30 | 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM (PST) at re:Invent Content hubs.

What are chalk talks?

Chalk Talks are highly interactive sessions with a small audience. Experts lead you through problems and solutions on a digital whiteboard as the discussion unfolds. Each begins with a short lecture (10–15 minutes) delivered by an AWS expert, followed by a 45- or 50-minute Q&A session with the audience.

Frontend web and mobile chalk talks

Level 300 — Advanced

FWM302 | Continuous testing of mobile and web applications with AWS Device Farm

This chalk talk dives deep into how you can use AWS Device Farm to build a scalable continuous testing solution that can proactively identify functional and performance bottlenecks on every code check-in. The talk covers performance testing techniques that you can implement using real mobile devices and focuses on key parameters that need to be configured and monitored when setting up this type of solution.

FWM308* | Architecture patterns for building private APIs with AWS AppSync

A highly requested feature on AWS AppSync is support for private APIs, which allow clients within a private network to access GraphQL APIs on AWS AppSync without traversing the public internet. In this chalk talk, dive deep on this new feature and the architecture patterns to enable API clients in different locations, in the AWS Cloud and on premises, to invoke private APIs on AWS AppSync. Learn how to build enterprise-ready GraphQL APIs that will meet your security requirements around private access to your AWS AppSync APIs.

*This session will be repeated on Nov. 27 | 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM (PST).

FWM309 | Dive deeper into web app development and hosting with AWS Amplify

Today’s web application developers must deliver on a complex list of requirements for app performance, reliability, security, and scale—and do it quickly. AWS Amplify Hosting is a fully managed CI/CD and hosting service for fast, secure, and reliable static and server-side rendered apps that scale with your business. Amplify Hosting supports popular web frameworks like Next.js and integrates seamlessly with your existing tools and processes to deliver complete, feature-rich web experiences that delight users. Join this chalk talk for a discussion on modern web development best practices and ways to help your organization innovate faster.

FWM310 | Faster, easier app data modeling with AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync

Today, real-time digital experiences are ubiquitous, and consumers have come to expect them. Examples include real-time sports scores and financial portfolio updates, interactive learning, location tracking, and chat capabilities. In this chalk talk, learn how AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync help to simplify your app development, connect and synchronize data between your web and mobile apps and your database, and build differentiated, real-time and offline apps faster.

FWM311 | Build a WebSocket API with conversation history for Amazon Bedrock

Large language models (LLMs) communicate best over asynchronous APIs because they can take many seconds or even minutes to respond to requests. These APIs need to manage chat history and conversational metadata while also safely exposing internal enterprise data and microservices to LLM agents. This chalk talk covers patterns for building asynchronous APIs for Amazon Bedrock that address these requirements using AWS AppSync GraphQL and WebSocket APIs, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS Lambda. Leave this talk with an AWS CDK project you can use to create your own Amazon Bedrock API.

FWM312* | Accelerate app development with AWS Amplify and Amazon CodeWhisperer

AWS Amplify makes creating feature-rich, full-stack applications faster and easier for frontend developers by reducing the learning curve and lines of code required to build cloud-powered web applications. In this chalk talk, discover strategies for using AWS Amplify with Amazon CodeWhisperer to accelerate the pace of development even further.

*This session will be repeated on Nov. 30 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM (PST).

What are workshops?

Workshops are two-hour interactive learning sessions where you work in small group teams to solve problems using AWS services. Each workshop starts with a short lecture (10–15 minutes) by the main speaker, and the rest of the time is spent working as a group.

Frontend web and mobile workshops

FWM301* | Building GraphQL and WebSockets APIs with AWS AppSync

In this workshop, discover the functionality of AWS AppSync, a fully managed service that makes it easy to develop GraphQL APIs by handling the heavy lifting of securely connecting to data sources like Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Lambda, and more. You must bring your laptop to participate.

*This session will be repeated on Nov. 30 | 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM (PST)

FWM303 | Create a cross-platform Flutter application with AWS Amplify

In this workshop, learn how to build performant applications for multiple platforms such as Android, iOS, and web without the stress of maintaining different code bases. Use AWS Amplify and Flutter libraries to build feature-rich, cloud-powered applications without deep cloud expertise. Find out how you can create a complete cross-platform application and add features such as authentication, API and data interactions, and media/file storage. You must bring your laptop to participate.

FWM304* | Build a real-time application with AWS Amplify & AWS AppSync

Building differentiated experiences leveraging real-time data helps to increase engagement and delight end users. In this workshop, build an online, real-time, multiplayer serverless trivia application quickly. More importantly, learn how to build real-time capabilities such as player scoring, leaderboards, and game state updates into your application. Use AWS Amplify to connect a frontend to a sophisticated backend with a GraphQL API powered by AWS AppSync using WebSockets to deliver real-time data to users. You must bring your laptop to participate.

*This session will be repeated on Nov. 29 | 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (PST).

FWM305 | Build server-side rendering (SSR) for apps with AWS Amplify

Next.js continues to gain momentum as a preferred server-side rendering (SSR) framework for frontend developers. In this workshop, use AWS Amplify to build a Next.js application to realize benefits like faster page loads and improved search engine optimization (SEO). You must bring your laptop to participate.

FWM307 | Test your mobile applications with AWS Device Farm

AWS Device Farm is an application testing service that helps you improve the quality of your mobile applications by testing them across an extensive range of real mobile devices without having to provision and manage any testing infrastructure. This workshop provides hands-on guidance for software engineers, quality assurance engineers, software testers, performance engineers, and architects on how to get started using Device Farm. In this workshop, compile and run a sample automation test suite across a broad selection of Device Farm devices. You must bring your laptop to participate.

What are builders’ sessions?

These 60-minute group sessions are led by an AWS expert and provide an interactive learning experience for building on AWS. Builders’ sessions are designed to create a hands-on experience where questions are encouraged.

Level 400 — Expert

FWM401* | Build feature-rich, full-stack apps with AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync

AWS Amplify is a set of purpose-built tools and features that lets frontend web and mobile developers quickly and easily build full-stack applications on AWS, with the flexibility to leverage the breadth of AWS services as your use cases evolve. AWS AppSync is a managed API service for developing applications faster with serverless GraphQL and pub/sub APIs. This builders’ session offers hands-on experience building scalable full-stack applications, powered by AWS Amplify and AWS AppSync. You must bring your laptop to participate.

*this session is repeated and is available to attend at any of the following times:

Lightning talks are short, 20-minute demos led from a stage.

FWM208 | Running AWS Device Farm tests from Amazon CodeCatalyst

In this follow-up demonstration to FWM202, see how to test desktop browser–based applications using AWS Device Farm. Write test specifications to implement automated tests against core functions like login, alerts, and navigation. These tests will validate expected behavior across the AWS Device Farm available browsers and capabilities. Also test your continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline within Amazon CodeCatalyst. The goal of this lightning talk is for you to leave with practical knowledge of using Device Farm for automated and remote access testing of web-based applications.

What are code talks?

Code talks are 60-minute, highly-interactive discussions featuring live coding. Attendees are encouraged to dig in and ask questions about the speaker’s approach.

FWM314 | Accelerate frontend web and mobile development with AWS Amplify

User-facing web and mobile applications are the primary touchpoint between organizations and their customers. In this code talk, explore how AWS Amplify can be used to develop a full-stack application from the beginning, including authentication, data access using GraphQL, file storage, and geolocation. See how you can now visually build your application front to back, from developing the frontend UI to configuring the application backend.

Finally, do not miss the Innovation Talk led by Vice President of AWS Generative Builders, Adam Seligman. In DOP225-INT Build without limits: The next-generation developer experience at AWS, Adam will provide updates on the latest developer tools and services, including generative AI-powered capabilities, low-code abstractions, cloud development, and operations. He’ll also welcome special guests to lead demos of key developer services and showcase how they integrate to increase productivity and innovation.

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