AWS releases Application Composer to make serverless easier, but the initial scope is limited
AWS has launched Application Composer, a visual designer for serverless applications that simplifies the design and configuration of applications running on Lambda, the AWS service for serverless functions. The tool presents a canvas, accessed via the AWS Management Console, on which developers drag, drop, and connect resources. It automatically sets permissions for these resources to interact. The project can also be viewed as YAML code, representing an AWS Cloud Formation template with two-way synchronization between the text and visual view. Developers can use the tool to import an existing CloudFormation template to visualize its contents. However, the tool only supports a small portion of the AWS platform, limiting its value.
Application Composer does not generate code other than the YAML, which describes the infrastructure, nor does it deploy applications. It works with the AWS SAM (Serverless Application Model) CLI (Command Line Interface), so you can generate an application design using the Composer and deploy it using the SAM CLI. The SAM CLI extends CloudFormation.
The list of resources fully surfaced in Application Composer is short: just 13 services at the time of writing, including Lambda, API Gateway, Cognito, EventBridge (for scheduling), DynamoDB, S3 (Simple Storage Service), and SQS. Other resources included in an imported template may be hidden resources with limited support or read-only resources that appear greyed out.
AWS also offers CloudFormation Designer, another web-based drag-and-drop tool for visualizing and working with CloudFormation templates. Unlike Application Composer, the Designer tool does not try to simplify the configuration of services but only to make it easier to author and work with the templates.