AWS
An Alchemy app on AWS is one runtime — usually a Lambda
Function — plus the resources it talks to: tables,
buckets, queues, streams. You wire them together with typed
bindings: call S3.PutObject(bucket) in your code and
Alchemy attaches the matching least-privilege IAM statement to
the function’s role. The code is the policy.
New here? Set up credentials first, then deploy your first Lambda.
Pick your runtime
Section titled “Pick your runtime”- Lambda — serverless, event-driven functions with public Function URLs. The primary documented path: every resource and event source in this section is shown running on Lambda.
- ECS — long-running containers on Fargate. Alchemy bundles your Effect program into a Docker image and runs it as a Cluster + Service + Task.
- EC2 — full-control virtual machines, with the complete VPC networking toolkit around them.
Not sure which? See Choosing a runtime.
- DynamoDB — key/value tables with
GetItem/PutItembindings and change-data-capture Streams. - S3 — object storage with
GetObject/PutObjectbindings and bucket event notifications. - RDS & Aurora — managed Postgres/MySQL: the
Aurorahelper stands up the whole cluster in one call, with aConnectbinding or the Data API at runtime.
Messaging & events
Section titled “Messaging & events”- SQS — queues with a
SendMessagebinding and aStream-shaped Lambda consumer. - SNS — pub/sub topics with a
Publishbinding and fan-out to queues and functions. - EventBridge & Scheduler — event buses, rules, and cron/rate schedules that invoke your functions.
- Kinesis — ordered, sharded data streams
with a
PutRecordbinding and the sameStreamconsumer surface.
Security & secrets
Section titled “Security & secrets”- Secrets & env — .env values via Config, Secrets Manager when the secret is shared, generated, or rotated.
Observability
Section titled “Observability”- CloudWatch — dashboards and metric alarms, declared in the same Stack as the resources they watch.
Frontend & networking
Section titled “Frontend & networking”- Websites — the frontend block: static
sites and built Vite apps on S3 + CloudFront as a single
StaticSiteresource. - VPC & networking — the
Networkhelper and the VPC primitives, for when ECS or EC2 needs explicit networking.
What are you building?
Section titled “What are you building?”| You’re building | Reach for |
|---|---|
| An HTTP API | Lambda + Function URL + DynamoDB |
| A typed HTTP API | Effect HTTP API on Lambda |
| A typed API for external clients | Effect RPC on Lambda |
| Drive a MicroVM from a Lambda (internal RPC) | MicroVMs + Schemaless RPC |
| A REST API with stages/custom domains | API Gateway |
| Your own domain on a site or API | Custom domains with Route53 + ACM |
| A static site | Deploy a static site on S3 + CloudFront |
| An event pipeline | Kinesis → Lambda |
| Background jobs | SQS + Lambda |
| Scheduled jobs | EventBridge Scheduler → Lambda |
| A Postgres database | RDS & Aurora |
| Object processing | S3 events |
| Change data capture | DynamoDB Streams |
| API keys or credentials for a function | Secrets & env |
Where next
Section titled “Where next”- Setup — install Alchemy and connect your AWS account.
- Deploy a static site and Effect HTTP API on Lambda — end-to-end guides for the two most common app shapes.
- Providers reference — generated API docs for every AWS resource Alchemy ships, well beyond the blocks documented here (CloudFront, Route53, IAM, and more).