AppSync Archives | theburningmonk.com

Building a custom IAM system has made me appreciate AWS IAM even more

AppSync, AWS, Lambda, Programming, Serverless / April 3, 2021 April 16, 2021

In the last post I discussed my preferred approach for modelling multi-tenant applications with AppSync and Cognito. This approach supports the common requirements in these applications, where there are a number of distinct roles within each tenant. This approach (and others like it) works great when the tenants are isolated. But what if they are …

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How to model one-to-many relationships with AppSync and DynamoDB

AppSync, AWS, DynamoDB, Programming, Serverless / March 27, 2021 March 27, 2021

Thank you to Josh for asking this question on the AppSync Masterclass forum. His original question goes like this: Let’s say I want to add a one-to-many relationship from Profile to a new property called “Tag” (a complex object with “name” and “color” properties) so a user can define their own Tags. I would also like a …

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How to secure multi-tenant applications with AppSync and Cognito

AppSync, AWS, Cognito, Serverless / March 26, 2021 March 26, 2021

One of the most common questions I get is “How do I build a multi-tenant application with AppSync and Cognito?”. If you google this topic on the internet you will no doubt come across many different opinions. It’s a topic that we’ll soon explore in the AppSync Masterclass but I want to take this opportunity …

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How I built a social network in 4 weeks with GraphQL and serverless

AppSync, AWS, GraphQL, Programming, Serverless / November 17, 2020 November 17, 2020

I have been involved with a client project to help the client launch a new social network for university students to engage with each other to do sports. Amongst other things, users can: Arrange activities and ask to join others’ activities (like a basketball match or to run in the park). There’s private messaging. Users …

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AppSync Masterclass is open for early access!

AppSync, AppSync Masterclass, AWS, Serverless / October 23, 2020 October 23, 2020

I have some exciting news to share with you. That after some initial delays, the AppSync Masterclass is now open for Early Access with 40% launch discount. First of all, thank you so much for your patience, it’s taken us a bit longer than we expected but we’re here, at last. You can purchase the …

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How to sample AppSync resolver logs

AppSync, AWS, CloudWatch, Lambda, Programming / September 22, 2020 October 7, 2020

AppSync has built-in logging integration with CloudWatch Logs (see here for more details on the logging options). You can set the Field resolver log level to NONE, ERROR or ALL. When the field resolver log level is set to NONE or ERROR, you don’t get a lot of value from the AppSync logs. For example, …

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How to set up custom domain names for AppSync

API Gateway, AppSync, AWS, CloudFront, Programming, Serverless / September 8, 2020 September 8, 2020

I previously wrote about five reasons you should consider AppSync over API Gateway. One thing that API Gateway supports but you can’t do with AppSync out-of-the-box yet is custom domain names. Your shiny new AppSync API is available at XYZ.appsync-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/graphql, but you really want people to use your own domain instead because dev.example.com/graphql is much …

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How to model hierarchical access with AppSync

AppSync, AWS, GraphQL, Programming, Serverless / August 26, 2020 August 26, 2020

I have been working with a US client to build a first-of-its-kind app for managing medical consents. It falls under HIPAA compliance and it’s paramount that we do not allow unauthorized access to user data. As part of the app, we have built an admin tool that will be used by admin staff from the …

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How I scaled an AppSync project to 200+ resolvers

AppSync, AWS, CloudFormation, Programming, Serverless / July 30, 2020 July 30, 2020

I have been working on a large AppSync project for a client these past few months. The initial version of the app was built in just a few weeks, but the client has commissioned additional features and the project has kept growing. At the time of writing, this project has over 200 AppSync resolvers and …

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AppSync: how to inject table names into DynamoDB batch & transact operations

AppSync, AWS, Programming, Serverless / July 19, 2020 September 5, 2020

When working with CloudFormation, AWS recommends not to give explicit names to resources and let CloudFormation name them for you. This has several advantages: It’s harder for attackers to guess resource names such as S3 buckets or DynamoDB tables. You can deploy the same stack multiple times to the same account. This is useful when …

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