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Deploy your Astro Site to AWS

AWS is a full-featured web app hosting platform that can be used to deploy an Astro site.

Deploying your project to AWS requires using the AWS console. (Most of these actions can also be done using the AWS CLI). This guide will walk you through the steps to deploy your site to AWS using AWS Amplify, S3 static website hosting, and CloudFront.

AWS Amplify

Section titled AWS Amplify

AWS Amplify is a set of purpose-built tools and features that lets frontend web and mobile developers quickly and easily build full-stack applications on AWS.

  1. Create a new Amplify Hosting project.

  2. Connect your repository to Amplify.

  3. Modify your build settings to match your project’s build process.

    version: 1
    frontend:
      phases:
        preBuild:
          commands:
            - npm ci
        build:
          commands:
            - npm run build
      artifacts:
        baseDirectory: /dist
        files:
          - '**/*'
      cache:
        paths:
          - node_modules/**/*

Amplify will automatically deploy your website and update it when you push a commit to your repository.

S3 static website hosting

Section titled S3 static website hosting

S3 is the starting point of any application. It is where your project files and other assets are stored. S3 charges for file storage and number of requests. You can find more information about S3 in the AWS documentation.

  1. Create an S3 bucket with your project’s name.

  2. Disable “Block all public access”. By default, AWS sets all buckets to be private. To make it public, you need to uncheck the “Block public access” checkbox in the bucket’s properties.

  3. Upload your built files located in dist to S3. You can do this manually in the console or use the AWS CLI. If you use the AWS CLI, use the following command after authenticating with your AWS credentials:

    aws s3 cp dist/ s3://<BUCKET_NAME>/ --recursive

  4. Update your bucket policy to allow public access. You can find this setting in the bucket’s Permissions > Bucket policy.

    {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
        {
          "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
          "Effect": "Allow",
          "Principal": "*",
          "Action": "s3:GetObject",
          "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET_NAME>/*"
        }
      ]
    }

  5. Enable website hosting for your bucket. You can find this setting in the bucket’s Properties > Static website hosting. Set your index document to index.html and your error document to 404.html. Finally, you can find your new website URL in the bucket’s Properties > Static website hosting.

S3 with CloudFront

Section titled S3 with CloudFront

CloudFront is a web service that provides content delivery network (CDN) capabilities. It is used to cache content of a web server and distribute it to end users. CloudFront charges for the amount of data transferred. Adding CloudFront to your S3 bucket is more cost-effective and provides a faster delivery.

To connect S3 with Cloudfront, create a CloudFront distribution with the following values:

  • Origin domain: Your S3 bucket static website endpoint. You can find your endpoint in your S3 bucket’s Properties > Static website hosting. Alternative, you can select your s3 bucket and click on the callout to replace your bucket address with your bucket static endpoint.
  • Viewer protocol policy: “Redirect to HTTPS”

This configuration will serve your site using the Cloudfront CDN network. You can find your CloudFront distribution URL in the bucket’s Distributions > Domain name.

Continuous deployment with GitHub Actions

Section titled Continuous deployment with GitHub Actions

There are many ways to set up continuous deployment for AWS. One possibility for code hosted on GitHub is to use GitHub Actions to deploy your website every time you push a commit.

  1. Create a new policy in your AWS account using IAM with the following permissions. This policy will allow you to upload built files to your S3 bucket and invalidate the CloudFront distribution files when you push a commit.

    {
      "Version": "2012-10-17",
      "Statement": [
          {
              "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Action": [
                  "s3:PutObject",
                  "s3:ListBucket",
                  "s3:DeleteObject",
                  "cloudfront:CreateInvalidation"
              ],
              "Resource": [
                  "<DISTRIBUTION_ARN>",
                  "arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET_NAME>/*",
                  "arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET_NAME>"
              ]
          }
      ]
    }

  2. Create a new IAM user and attach the policy to the user. This will provide your AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY and AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID.

  3. Add this sample workflow to your repository at .github/workflows/deploy.yml and push it to GitHub. You will need to add AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, BUCKET_ID, and DISTRIBUTION_ID as “secrets” to your repository on GitHub under Settings > Secrets > Actions. Click New repository secret to add each one.

    name: Deploy Website
    

    on:
      push:
        branches:
          - main
    

    jobs:
      deploy:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        steps:
          - name: Checkout
            uses: actions/checkout@v3
          - name: Configure AWS Credentials
            uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v1
            with:
              aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
              aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
              aws-region: us-east-1
          - name: Install modules
            run: npm ci
          - name: Build application
            run: npm run build
          - name: Deploy to S3
            run: aws s3 sync --delete ./dist/ s3://${{ secrets.BUCKET_ID }}
          - name: Create CloudFront invalidation
            run: aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id ${{ secrets.DISTRIBUTION_ID }} --paths "/*"

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