https://martzmakes.com/martzmakes.com — long-formhttps://martzmakes.com/the-4-dollar-network-grew-uphttps://martzmakes.com/the-4-dollar-network-grew-upFri, 22 May 2026 17:12:19 GMTFour days after launching a social network on $4/mo of AWS, I moved my real identity onto it, bridged it to the Fediverse, and taught Claude to run it over MCP.https://martzmakes.com/its-my-birthday-and-im-giving-you-the-gift-serverless-mcp-servers-that-cost-less-than-birthday-cakehttps://martzmakes.com/its-my-birthday-and-im-giving-you-the-gift-serverless-mcp-servers-that-cost-less-than-birthday-cakeWed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTHow serverless architecture is transforming the way AI assistants connect to your tools and datahttps://martzmakes.com/one-client-two-worlds-building-a-type-safe-api-and-react-agent-interface-with-zod-langgraph-and-awshttps://martzmakes.com/one-client-two-worlds-building-a-type-safe-api-and-react-agent-interface-with-zod-langgraph-and-awsSat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTIn this post, I’ll show you how I built a single TypeScript framework for creating robust, schema-validated API clients that serve both humans and ReAct agentshttps://martzmakes.com/crafting-the-ultimate-serverless-discord-slash-bot-with-aws-lambdahttps://martzmakes.com/crafting-the-ultimate-serverless-discord-slash-bot-with-aws-lambdaSat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTUnleash the power of serverless architecture by building a Discord bot that elegantly processes slash commands using AWS Lambda and AWS CDK. We’ll tap into thehttps://martzmakes.com/secure-your-serverless-app-with-cognitos-managed-login-pageshttps://martzmakes.com/secure-your-serverless-app-with-cognitos-managed-login-pagesTue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMTWhen you think about user authentication, you might picture wrestling with OAuth flows, wrestling with JWT tokens, or setting up a dozen redirects just to log ahttps://martzmakes.com/rendering-diagrams-with-aws-lambdahttps://martzmakes.com/rendering-diagrams-with-aws-lambdaSat, 21 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTDiagrams are the unsung heroes of technical projects. Whether you’re sketching out the architecture of your latest application or untangling the web of nodes inhttps://martzmakes.com/the-backend-for-frontend-bff-patternhttps://martzmakes.com/the-backend-for-frontend-bff-patternMon, 16 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMTIt’s exhausting, isn’t it? Crafting this pristine backend, where services are finely tuned with domain logic, validation, and business rules, all while your poohttps://martzmakes.com/cdk-slackbot-bedrockhttps://martzmakes.com/cdk-slackbot-bedrockTue, 07 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMTIn the dynamic world of software development, staying abreast of changes and deployments is crucial for team collaboration and efficiency. In my previous post,https://martzmakes.com/cdk-slackbothttps://martzmakes.com/cdk-slackbotMon, 21 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMTIn this post, we're diving into the powerful world of automation using the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) to create a serverless-backed Slack App. The goal? Sehttps://martzmakes.com/amplifying-aws-tutorials-building-a-social-notes-app-with-sign-in-with-apple-and-aws-pinpoint-analyticshttps://martzmakes.com/amplifying-aws-tutorials-building-a-social-notes-app-with-sign-in-with-apple-and-aws-pinpoint-analyticsTue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMTFor the 2023 AWS Amplify + Hashnode Hackathon, I wanted to take a closer look into iOS development and take the introductory iOS notes app from AWS Amplify's tuhttps://martzmakes.com/leveraging-cdk-and-serverless-for-bluesky-feed-generationhttps://martzmakes.com/leveraging-cdk-and-serverless-for-bluesky-feed-generationWed, 05 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMTIn the dynamic world of social media, Bluesky is carving out a niche with its innovative approach to content curation. With its unique "My Feeds" feature, Blueshttps://martzmakes.com/destroy-their-stacks-ephemeral-cdk-stacks-as-a-servicehttps://martzmakes.com/destroy-their-stacks-ephemeral-cdk-stacks-as-a-serviceThu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMTIn this post, we will enhance our ephemeral stack architecture by consolidating the destruction process to a central service. We will utilize a stack lifetime thttps://martzmakes.com/creating-an-aurora-mysql-database-and-setting-up-a-kinesis-cdc-stream-with-aws-cdkhttps://martzmakes.com/creating-an-aurora-mysql-database-and-setting-up-a-kinesis-cdc-stream-with-aws-cdkMon, 26 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMTWelcome to this comprehensive guide where we will be using the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) to create an Aurora MySQL Database, initialize it using Custom Rehttps://martzmakes.com/blink-and-its-gone-embracing-ephemeral-cdk-stacks-for-efficient-devopshttps://martzmakes.com/blink-and-its-gone-embracing-ephemeral-cdk-stacks-for-efficient-devopsTue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 GMTI'm excited to announce that I'll be speaking at AWS Summit Washington, DC on June 8th, 2023, at 2:15PM (DEV206). My DevChat will discuss the benefits of ephemehttps://martzmakes.com/breaking-bad-practices-with-cdk-aspectshttps://martzmakes.com/breaking-bad-practices-with-cdk-aspectsWed, 17 May 2023 00:00:00 GMTIn the ever-evolving landscape of cloud infrastructure, AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) continues to stand as a groundbreaking tool, simplifying the process ofhttps://martzmakes.com/say-goodbye-to-your-cdk-stacks-a-guide-to-self-destructionhttps://martzmakes.com/say-goodbye-to-your-cdk-stacks-a-guide-to-self-destructionWed, 22 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMTAre you tired of constantly managing your CDK Stacks and dealing with the associated costs? If so, self-destructing CDK Stacks might be the solution you've beenhttps://martzmakes.com/improving-a-serverless-app-to-cross-post-blogshttps://martzmakes.com/improving-a-serverless-app-to-cross-post-blogsTue, 21 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMTAllen Helton is an AWS Hero and absolute LEGEND. In December he wrote a post titled "I Built a Serverless App To Cross-Post My Blogs" and after some begging frohttps://martzmakes.com/core-web-vitals-cdk-constructs-and-youhttps://martzmakes.com/core-web-vitals-cdk-constructs-and-youWed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMTAs a web developer, you know the importance of delivering a fast and smooth user experience. But with the constantly evolving web landscape, it can be challengihttps://martzmakes.com/automate-documenting-eventbridge-schemas-in-eventcataloghttps://martzmakes.com/automate-documenting-eventbridge-schemas-in-eventcatalogThu, 27 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTIn this series we're going to SUPERCHARGE developer experience by implementing Event Driven Documentation. In part 1 we used CDK to deploy EventCatalog to a cuhttps://martzmakes.com/automate-documenting-api-gateways-in-eventcataloghttps://martzmakes.com/automate-documenting-api-gateways-in-eventcatalogWed, 26 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTIn this series we're going to SUPERCHARGE developer experience by implementing Event Driven Documentation. In part 1 we used CDK to deploy EventCatalog to a cuhttps://martzmakes.com/using-aws-cdk-to-deploy-eventcataloghttps://martzmakes.com/using-aws-cdk-to-deploy-eventcatalogMon, 24 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTIn this series we're going to SUPERCHARGE developer experience by implementing Event Driven Documentation. In this post, we'll start by using CDK to deploy Evehttps://martzmakes.com/protect-a-static-site-with-auth0-using-lambdaedge-and-cloudfronthttps://martzmakes.com/protect-a-static-site-with-auth0-using-lambdaedge-and-cloudfrontFri, 14 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTIn this post, we'll use AWS CDK to deploy a static site to an S3 Bucket, distribute the site using CloudFront, and protect it with a CloudFront Lambda@Edge funchttps://martzmakes.com/how-to-use-binlogs-to-make-an-aurora-mysql-event-streamhttps://martzmakes.com/how-to-use-binlogs-to-make-an-aurora-mysql-event-streamMon, 03 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTAurora MySQL doesn’t offer a change data capture stream similar to DynamoDB Streams. In this post we’re going to make one anyways by using the built-in MySQL Bhttps://martzmakes.com/inferring-architecture-and-asynchronous-workflows-using-eventbridge-eventshttps://martzmakes.com/inferring-architecture-and-asynchronous-workflows-using-eventbridge-eventsWed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMTIn part 2 of my series on Event Driven Step Functions we'll create a completely separate CDK Application that will observe the event traffic generated from thehttps://martzmakes.com/orchestrating-choreography-with-event-driven-step-functionshttps://martzmakes.com/orchestrating-choreography-with-event-driven-step-functionsMon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMTTwo years ago The Burning Monk (AWS Hero Yan Cui) wrote a post about the differences between using a loosely coupled event driven architecture (choreography) vshttps://martzmakes.com/create-a-cross-account-iam-authorized-apigateway-with-cdkhttps://martzmakes.com/create-a-cross-account-iam-authorized-apigateway-with-cdkThu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMTI have a use case where I need a lambda in AWS account A to privately request information from an APIGateway in AWS account B. Normally we do this using Auth0https://martzmakes.com/did-i-just-invent-cdk-level-4-constructshttps://martzmakes.com/did-i-just-invent-cdk-level-4-constructsFri, 22 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMTAt work we use a Multi-bus, multi-account Event Driven Architecture pattern. It works great, but a pain point is making event interfaces match across multiplehttps://martzmakes.com/creating-cdk-pipeline-constructs-to-improve-developer-experiencehttps://martzmakes.com/creating-cdk-pipeline-constructs-to-improve-developer-experienceThu, 10 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTProjects with an integrated CDK Pipeline can be cumbersome (at times) when you need to deploy into a developer-friendly/sandbox account WITHOUT the pipeline. Ihttps://martzmakes.com/cdk-pipelines-crash-coursehttps://martzmakes.com/cdk-pipelines-crash-courseWed, 09 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTCDK Pipelines is an opinionated construct library. It is purpose-built to deploy one or more copies of your CDK applications using CloudFormation with a minimalhttps://martzmakes.com/how-to-convert-a-lambda-to-a-step-functionhttps://martzmakes.com/how-to-convert-a-lambda-to-a-step-functionThu, 06 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMTI attended AWS re:Invent 2021 in-person and one of my big takeaways was the focus on AWS Step Functions. With the late September announcement that Step Functiohttps://martzmakes.com/improving-eventbridge-schema-discoveryhttps://martzmakes.com/improving-eventbridge-schema-discoveryFri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMTIn my previous post experimenting with EventBridge, Evaluating AWS EventBridge Schema Discovery I used AWS Schema Registry with Event Discovery and tried out ahttps://martzmakes.com/evaluating-aws-eventbridge-schema-discoveryhttps://martzmakes.com/evaluating-aws-eventbridge-schema-discoverySat, 24 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMTThis article is going to experiment with EventBridge and the AWS Schema Registry with Event Discovery and evaluate EventBridge Atlas which is a 3rd party tool thttps://martzmakes.com/creating-verifiable-json-web-tokens-jwts-with-aws-cdkhttps://martzmakes.com/creating-verifiable-json-web-tokens-jwts-with-aws-cdkSat, 06 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMTJSON Web Tokens (JWTs, pronounced "jots") are pretty neat. You can use JWTs to share information in a way that you can verify it wasn't altered.https://martzmakes.com/using-aws-amplify-to-rapid-prototype-a-real-time-dungeonsanddragons-maphttps://martzmakes.com/using-aws-amplify-to-rapid-prototype-a-real-time-dungeonsanddragons-mapSun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMTTL;DR -https://martzmakes.com/automatically-keep-postman-collections-in-sync-with-openapi-specshttps://martzmakes.com/automatically-keep-postman-collections-in-sync-with-openapi-specsMon, 08 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMTThis post will show you how to take an OpenAPI Spec file and automatically generate a Postman Collection of API tests with minimal configuration. This is espechttps://martzmakes.com/lock-down-dynamodb-with-iam-policy-conditionshttps://martzmakes.com/lock-down-dynamodb-with-iam-policy-conditionsTue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMTAt work we've begun exploring the use of IAM policy conditions to limit access to items in our DynamoDB Tables. This gives a much more specific level of controhttps://martzmakes.com/moving-s3-triggered-lambdas-to-eventbridge-with-cdkhttps://martzmakes.com/moving-s3-triggered-lambdas-to-eventbridge-with-cdkTue, 22 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMTLately I've been encountering some issues with a particular architecture for propagating data changes between multiple AWS accounts. The current architecture rhttps://martzmakes.com/hashnodes-2articles1week-challengehttps://martzmakes.com/hashnodes-2articles1week-challengeSun, 08 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMTHashnode has a thing where they have occasional challenges to earn "badges" on their site. The first challenge I participated in was their 2Articles1Week Challhttps://martzmakes.com/hashnode-with-devtohttps://martzmakes.com/hashnode-with-devtoSat, 07 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMTTL;DR... it's probably worth it to post to both hashnode and dev.to. Use this link to create a hashnode account: https://hashnode.com/@martzcodes/joinmehttps://martzmakes.com/openapi-specs-from-cdk-stack-without-deploying-firsthttps://martzmakes.com/openapi-specs-from-cdk-stack-without-deploying-firstThu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMTIn my last post How to Automatically Generate Request Models from TypeScript Interfaces, I walked through how to automatically define request and response modelhttps://martzmakes.com/what-is-an-aws-community-builderhttps://martzmakes.com/what-is-an-aws-community-builderSat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMTOn July 30, 2020 AWS announced a new AWS Community Builders Program. I applied and in October 2020 I was accepted into the program!https://martzmakes.com/how-to-automatically-generate-request-models-from-typescript-interfaceshttps://martzmakes.com/how-to-automatically-generate-request-models-from-typescript-interfacesFri, 30 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMTI ♥️ AWS CDK (big CDK fan-boi) and have several projects at work that make use of CDK with AWS's APIGateway. But there isn't an easy way to do API Request Valihttps://martzmakes.com/token-authorizers-with-apigatewayv2-tricks-apigwv1-doesnt-want-you-to-knowhttps://martzmakes.com/token-authorizers-with-apigatewayv2-tricks-apigwv1-doesnt-want-you-to-knowThu, 06 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMTI came across a problem at work where we want to use APIGateway Version 2... but there isn't a clear example for how to use Authorizers with it.https://martzmakes.com/using-dynamodb-streams-to-sync-back-to-your-old-databasehttps://martzmakes.com/using-dynamodb-streams-to-sync-back-to-your-old-databaseThu, 25 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMTIn my continuing saga of database and api modernization, I'm going to explore using DynamoDB streams to back-propagate data to the old MySQL database. I'm hopihttps://martzmakes.com/dynamodb-lambdas-and-api-gw-with-localstack-or-nothttps://martzmakes.com/dynamodb-lambdas-and-api-gw-with-localstack-or-notFri, 19 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMTMy original goal for this post was to get a local version of DynamoDB, API Gateway and Lambdas up and running using localstack. Unfortunately localstack doesn'https://martzmakes.com/using-githubs-api-to-search-for-code-references-across-multiple-organizationshttps://martzmakes.com/using-githubs-api-to-search-for-code-references-across-multiple-organizationsFri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMTBackgroundhttps://martzmakes.com/migrating-full-stack-apps-from-poly-repo-to-mono-repohttps://martzmakes.com/migrating-full-stack-apps-from-poly-repo-to-mono-repoWed, 25 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMTIn this post I'm going to create a super-basic Nx-backed mono-repo app and dockerize it.https://martzmakes.com/aws-sam-local-with-postgreshttps://martzmakes.com/aws-sam-local-with-postgresThu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMTIn this post we're going to create two super-basic lambda functions that read and write to a postgres table using AWS Severless Application Model (SAM), Docker(https://martzmakes.com/integration-testing-across-multiple-repos-with-codefreshhttps://martzmakes.com/integration-testing-across-multiple-repos-with-codefreshSat, 07 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMTLet's say you're like me and you happen to have a project that consists of PHP (🤮)... or an Angular app... or Golang... with some embedded react components...https://martzmakes.com/writing-an-angular-schematic-to-add-a-lazy-loaded-feature-routehttps://martzmakes.com/writing-an-angular-schematic-to-add-a-lazy-loaded-feature-routeTue, 11 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMTtitle: Writing an Angular Schematic to add a Lazy Loaded Feature Routehttps://martzmakes.com/are-you-a-jerkhttps://martzmakes.com/are-you-a-jerkSun, 05 May 2019 00:00:00 GMTtitle: Are You a Jerk?