cdk-django

About this construct library

cdk-django is a library for deploying Django applications to AWS using ECS Fargate.

cdk-django aims to demonstrate best-practices for building web applications in AWS cloud. Executing the code in this project will build cloud resources such as networks, servers and databases that power a web application that can run securely on the public internet.

You don't need to use this library directly in your code. It is recommended that you use this repo as a guide. It includes common patterns that are used when working with Infrastructure as Code.

Companion application

This project has a companion repo that contains a Django (Python) web application backend and a Nuxt.js frontend site (server-rendered Vue.js written in TypeScript). This project can be found here:

https://github.com/briancaffey/django-step-by-step/

Related projects

This project is has been written with the two other main Infrastructure as Code tools: Terraform and Pulumi. You can find these repos here:

• terraform-aws-django
• pulumi-aws-django

Project structure

There are two main constructs the build resources for the different stacks:

• base
• app

The base stack deploys long-lived resources that shouldn't need to be updated frequently, these include:

• VPC
• ElastiCache
• S3
• Security Groups
• Load balancer
• RDS

The app stack deploys resources primarily for ECS services that run the application processes, these include:

• ECS cluster for the environment
• web-facing services (for running gunicorn and for running the frontend UI app)
• celery worker for asynchronous task processing
• celery beat for scheduled tasks
• management_command for running migrations and other "pre-update" tasks (collectstatic, loading fixtures, etc.)
• All backend environment variables are configured here (shared between all backend services)
• Route 53 record for the environment (e.g. <env_name>.example.com)
• IAM resources (this might be able to be moved to the base stack)

Local Examples

It is best to deploy cloud infrastructure with automated pipelines that execute Infrastructure as Code. For testing and development you can deploy locally.

The Makefile in this repo documents the commands to create and destroy infrastructure for the base and app stacks. For example:

# base stack
ecs-base-synth:
	cdk synth --app='lib/examples/ecs/index.js' -e ExampleEcsBaseStack

ecs-base-diff:
	cdk diff --app='./lib/examples/ecs/index.js' -e ExampleEcsBaseStack

ecs-base-deploy:
	cdk deploy --app='./lib/examples/ecs/index.js' -e ExampleEcsBaseStack

ecs-base-deploy-approve:
	cdk deploy --app='./lib/examples/ecs/index.js' --require-approval never -e ExampleEcsBaseStack

ecs-base-destroy:
	yes | cdk destroy --app='./lib/examples/ecs/index.js' -e ExampleEcsBaseStack

Companion application

To see how terraform-aws-django can be used, have a look at https://github.com/briancaffey/django-step-by-step.

This companion repo includes two main components: a Django application (backend) and a Nuxt.js application (frontend)

Django backend application features

• email-based authentication flow (confirmation email + forgot password)
• microblog app (users can write posts with text and images, like posts)
• chat app (a simple OpenAI API wrapper)

Nuxt.js frontend client features

• Vue 3, Nuxt v3.15
• SSR
• shadcn
• tailwindcss
• pinia
• composables

This construct library focuses on security, best practices, scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency.

Maintaining this repo

Make sure you are on the most recent version of CDK:

npm i -g aws-cdk

This project is managed by projen. To update the application, run the following:

npx projen upgrade

Update CDK version in .projenrc.ts and then run:

npx projen

Run npx projen watch in one terminal.

In another terminal, export AWS credentials and environment variables and then run commands in the Makefile.

Here are the environment variables you will need to export:

export DOMAIN_NAME=example.com
export CERTIFICATE_ARN=arn:aws:acm:us-east-1:111111111111:certificate/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111
export AWS_REGION=us-east-1
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=abc
export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=123
export COMPANY_NAME=abc
export AWS_ACCOUNT_ID=123456789

Release process

This project uses projen to manage the release process. There is a GitHub Action called release that will make a release and publish it to npm. Before running release, make sure you run yarn build to build the documentation, and run yarn eslint to fix any linting errors.

Issues

• projen/projen#3950