AWS CDK GlossaryΒΆ
The AWS CDK uses the following terms. Some are based on AWS CloudFormation concepts.
- app
An executable program that the AWS CDK uses to synthesize a AWS CloudFormation template. Apps are:
- Written by a user
- Contain one or more stacks that can be deployed into multiple AWS environments
- Define the infrastructure of your application
Apps extend the
aws-cdk.App
class.- applet
- A reusable AWS CDK construct that can be instantiated and deployed through a YAML-format file.
- AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK)
- An AWS toolkit that enables infrastructure as code (IaC), exposing AWS resources and high-level constructs for use in popular DevOps programming languages.
- construct
- The building block of an AWS CDK app or library. In code, they are instances of
the
aws-cdk.Construct
class or a class that extends theaws-cdk.Construct
class. - environment
- An AWS deployment target for AWS CDK stacks, defined by a specific AWS account and region.
- CloudFormation Resource
- The lowest-level construct, which maps directly to an AWS CloudFormation resource,
as described in the
AWS Resource Types Reference.
These constructs are available in the
@aws-cdk/resources
package, as the AWS CloudFormation name, in lower case, with a Resource suffix within the AWS service namespace, such as sqs.QueueResource, which represents an Amazon SQS queue. - AWS Construct Library
- A construct that provides high-level APIs for AWS services. Their names imply the underlying AWS service. For example, Amazon S3 resources are available through the @aws-cdk/s3 package.
- stack
- An AWS CDK construct that can be deployed into an environment.
Stacks extend the
aws-cdk.Stack
class.