How to use CDK init to create a CDK App

Creating a new CDK App #

In order to create a new CDK App we have to use the cdk init command. For example:

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mkdir cdk-app
cd cdk-app
npx aws-cdk init app --language=typescript

We can write our CDK code in many programming languages and init our CDK app from multiple starter templates, to list the available options we can append the --list flag to the command:

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npx aws-cdk init --list

The output shows all the available programming languages we can use in our CDK app and all of the available starter templates:

There are 3 templates we can start from:

• app - a basic starter template
• lib - a template for writing a CDK construct library
• sample-app - a starter with some constructs included

Note that cdk init cannot be run in a non-empty directory, so we first have to create one:

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mkdir cdk-app
cd cdk-app
npx aws-cdk init app --language=typescript

The output from the command looks like:

At this point we have successfully initialized an empty CDK project.

If you want to specify an AWS CLI profile, other than your default one to be used as the default environment for your CDK App, you can pass the --profile flag, i.e.:

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mkdir cdk-app
cd cdk-app
npx aws-cdk init app \
  --language=typescript \
  --profile=my-profile

Further Reading #

• AWS CDK Tutorial for Beginners - Step-by-Step Guide
• How does AWS CDK work
• CDK Constructs - Complete Guide
• What is a Token in AWS CDK
• How to use Context in AWS CDK
• How to use Parameters in AWS CDK