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Powertools for AWS Lambda
Developer toolkit to implement serverless best practices and increase developer velocity
How it works
Powertools for AWS Lambda simplifies the implementation of serverless best practices by providing utilities with standard patterns across supported languages (Python, Java, TypeScript, and .NET).
The toolkit helps developers implement serverless best practices out-of-the-box, through standardised utilities for observability, security, resilience patterns, idempotency, data masking, batch processing, simplified data parsing and validation, with minimal boilerplate and built-in data validation.
Key benefits
Structured logging, distributed tracing, and custom metrics with minimal configuration and zero infrastructure overhead.
Choose the utilities that best suit your needs. Adopt one, a few, or all industry practices progressively.
Event parsing, validation, batch processing, and idempotency patterns reduce boilerplate code significantly.
Available for Python, TypeScript, Java, and .NET with consistent APIs and patterns.
Key utilities
Logger
Structured logging with Lambda context enrichment, sampling capabilities, and JSON formatting for CloudWatch Logs.
Metrics
Custom metrics via CloudWatch Embedded Metric Format (EMF) with automatic cold start detection and namespace management.
Tracer
Distributed tracing with AWS X-Ray integration, automatic metadata capture, and custom annotations support.
Idempotency
Ensures safely handle retries by guaranteeing that multiple invocations with the same payload produce the same result, preventing duplicate side effects.
Get started
Use the built-in AWS Lambda layers (Python & TypeScript) or install via your language’s package manager (Python, TypeScript, Java, .NET). See the official documentation for examples.
Design Principles
AWS Lambda Optimized
We optimize specifically for AWS Lambda function environments and supported runtimes, ensuring minimal cold start impact and maximum performance.
Best Practices First
Our main priority is facilitating the adoption of AWS Well-Architected Serverless Lens best practices with minimal configuration required.
Keep It Lean
Dependencies are carefully considered for security, maintenance, and startup time impact.
Progressive Adoption
Utilities are designed to be incrementally adoptable for customers at any stage of their serverless journey, following language idioms and community practices.
Community Driven
We work backwards from the community, aiming to strike a balance of what works best for 80% of customers while maintaining backwards compatibility.
Voices of Success
Capital One
"Capital One has widely-adopted Powertools for AWS for projects across the enterprise. Powertools allows us to implement serverless best practices by leveraging the boundless resources provided by the global open source community. Whether it’s an organization’s first serverless project or development of a new serverless platform, Powertools for AWS can help companies improve developer productivity and easily implement common best practice tasks."
Daniel Furman - Distinguished Engineer at Capital One
CyberArk
"Diving into the world of serverless? Powertools for AWS Lambda is a game-changer! It's like the Swiss Army knife for our serverless journey. Honestly, I can't imagine writing serverless without it anymore."
Ran Isenberg - Principal Software Architect at CyberArk
Frequently Asked Questions
Page topics
Common Questions
Open allUse pre-compiled Lambda Layers (available for Python and TypeScript) or standard package managers for each supported language.
Powertools for AWS Lambda is available for Python, TypeScript, Java, and .NET with consistent APIs and patterns across all runtimes. Each language implementation follows the respective community's best practices and may vary between available utilities.
Powertools for AWS is designed to minimize cold start impact. We carefully manage dependencies, and optimize for fast initialization.
Yes! Powertools for AWS is designed for progressive adoption. You can use individual utilities independently without requiring the full toolkit.
Yes, incorporating Powertools for AWS in your Lambda function is completely free and open source under the MIT-0 license. It's maintained by AWS and the community with no extra usage costs.
Additional resources
Get going with Powertools for AWS | it’s free
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