Typescript app deployment against AWS EB

To deploy an app built with Typescript, we have to deploy its artifacts rather than source code managed by git.

0 - Install EB CLI

To manipulate Elasticbeanstalk, we need to use EB CLI, written in Python. We install this with PIP.

pip install awsebcli --upgrade --user

If you don't have Python, you can download from https://www.python.org/. Any version above v2.7 or v3.4 should work.

Also, you have to install pip. Check this link too. https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip/

1 - Prepare package

package.json

# Generate package.json
npm init -y

# Install dependencies
npm i -D typescript @types/node @types/express
npm i express

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es6",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "rootDir": "src",
    "outDir": "build"
  }
}

2 - Create App

src/index.ts

import express = require('express')

const app = express()

app.use((req, res) => {
  res.send('hi')
})

app.listen(process.env.PORT, () => {
  console.log('server is ready.')
})

3 - Build typescript and check

Add build and start scripts to package.json.

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "start": "node build/index.js"
  }
}

Compile and run our app with the scripts

# Compile typescript
npm run build

# Run with compiled javascript
PORT=3000 npm run start

Check our app actually working at http://localhost:3000

4 - Prepare Artifact

scripts/dist.sh

# If the directory, `dist`, doesn't exist, create `dist`
stat dist || mkdir dist
# Archive artifacts
zip dist/$npm_package_name.zip -r build package.json package-lock.json

Add dist script

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "start": "node build/index.js",
    "dist": "sh ./scripts/dist.sh"
  }
}

5 - Deploy app

# Initialize app to EB
eb init

# Initialize environment
eb create

Add the below 2 lines to the bottom of .elasticbeanstalk/config.yml.

deploy:
  artifact: dist/aws-eb-typescript-app.zip

Deploy again

eb deploy --staged