Serverless Go Functions with AWS Lambda: A Step-by-Step Guide

Are you excited to go serverless with Go? This blog post will take you through a step-by-step process of developing a serverless application in Go, leveraging AWS Lambda.

Introduction

AWS Lambda is a serverless computing service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It allows you to run your code without provisioning or managing servers. Go is a statically typed, compiled language with syntax loosely derived from C. Combined, they provide a powerful platform for building fast, scalable, and efficient serverless applications.

Here is a video about this topic 🚀

Table of Contents 📋

1. Writing Your Lambda Function in Go

2. Building Your Function

3. Packaging Your Function

4. Deploying Your Function to AWS Lambda

5. Testing Your Function

Let's get started!

1. Writing Your Lambda Function in Go 🔮

The first step is to write a simple Go function that responds to an API request.

Step 1.1 Create a New Go Module 🔍

Open your terminal and create a new directory with the following commands:

mkdir hello-world
cd hello-world
go mod init hello-world

Step 1.2 Write a Lambda Function ✍️

Next, create a new Go file (main.go) in this directory with the following content:

package main

import (
    "github.com/aws/aws-lambda-go/events"
    "github.com/aws/aws-lambda-go/lambda"
)

func handler(request events.APIGatewayProxyRequest) (events.APIGatewayProxyResponse, error) {
    return events.APIGatewayProxyResponse{
        StatusCode: 200,
        Body:       "Hello, World!",
    }, nil
}

func main() {
    lambda.Start(handler)
}

This function listens for HTTP requests and returns a "Hello, World!" message.

2. Building Your Function 🍆

After writing the function, it's time to build it. For AWS Lambda, you need to target Linux and create an executable file.

Step 2.1 Set Environment Variables and Build 🔥

Set the GOOS and GOARCH environment variables and build your function with the following command:

GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o main main.go

This builds your function into an executable named main.

3. Packaging Your Function 📦

To deploy your function to AWS Lambda, you need to package it as a ZIP file.

Step 3.1 Create a ZIP file 🤐

Create a ZIP file containing the main executable with the following command:

zip function.zip main

4. Deploying Your Function to AWS Lambda ☁️

Now, it's time to deploy the function to AWS Lambda.

Step 4.1 Create a New Lambda Function 🏛️

Use the AWS CLI to create a new Lambda function with the following command:

aws lambda create-function --function-name HelloWorld --zip-file fileb://function.zip --handler main --runtime go1.x --role arn:aws:iam::<account-id>:role/<execution-role-name>

Here, replace <account-id> with your AWS account ID and <execution-role-name> with the name of an IAM role that has the AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole policy attached.

5. Testing Your Function 🏃‍♂️

Finally, you can test the function to ensure it works as expected.

Step 5.1 Invoke the Lambda Function 💡

Invoke your Lambda function with the following command:

aws lambda invoke --function-name HelloWorld out --log-type Tail

If everything is set up correctly, the command output should be:

{
    "StatusCode": 200,
    "ExecutedVersion": "$LATEST"
}

The out the file should contain the following:

{
    "statusCode": 200,
    "body": "\"Hello, World!\""
}

Congratulations! You have successfully created a serverless Go function with AWS Lambda.

Conclusion 😃

By following these steps, you can leverage the power of AWS Lambda and Go to create serverless applications. Remember, this is a basic function that responds to an API request. You can create more complex applications by adding more functions and capabilities to your application. Happy coding!

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Happy building!