🏗️ AWS 3-Tier DevOps Project — TaskFlow

Design → Build → Prove. A production-grade, 3-tier web app deployed to AWS with Terraform and a GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline — built the way a senior engineer would.

📺 Watch the build: devopsbymuh on YouTube  ·  📖 Deep dive: blog article  ·  🎯 This is Project 1 of the 10-project series

Note

TaskFlow is a small SaaS task-board app. The app itself is deliberately simple — the point of this repo is everything around it: the architecture, the infrastructure as code, the pipeline, and the production practices. You'll run it locally in one command, then deploy the exact same app to AWS.

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📐 The architecture

A classic 3-tier design across two Availability Zones — the foundational pattern every later project in the series is a variation of.

flowchart TB
    User([👤 User]) --> CF[CloudFront CDN]
    CF -->|static SPA| S3[(S3 · React build)]
    CF -->|/api/*| ALB[Application Load Balancer]

    subgraph AWS VPC
      subgraph "Public subnets (2 AZs)"
        ALB
      end
      subgraph "Private subnets (2 AZs)"
        ECS1[ECS Fargate · FastAPI]
        ECS2[ECS Fargate · FastAPI]
      end
      subgraph "Private DB subnets (2 AZs)"
        RDS[(RDS Postgres · Multi-AZ)]
      end
    end

    ALB --> ECS1 & ECS2
    ECS1 & ECS2 --> RDS

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Tier	Responsibility	AWS service	Runs locally as
Presentation	Serve the static React SPA	S3 + CloudFront	nginx container
Application	Stateless REST API	ECS Fargate + ALB	FastAPI container
Data	Durable, highly-available state	RDS Postgres (Multi-AZ)	Postgres container

Full reasoning — why ECS Fargate over EKS, why Multi-AZ, how the health check drives failover — is in docs/system-design.md and the Architecture Decision Records.

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🚀 Quickstart — run it locally in one command

Prerequisites: Docker + Docker Compose.

git clone https://github.com/devopsbymuh/aws-3tier-devops-project.git
cd aws-3tier-devops-project
docker compose up --build

Then open:

URL	What
http://localhost:8080	TaskFlow app (frontend)
http://localhost:8000/docs	API — interactive Swagger docs
http://localhost:8000/health	Health check (what the ALB probes)

The database is auto-seeded with demo tasks on first run, so the board looks alive immediately. Stop with Ctrl+C; wipe the DB with make reset.

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🧩 Tech stack

• Frontend: React 18 + Vite (static SPA → S3/CloudFront)
• Backend: FastAPI + SQLAlchemy 2.0 (stateless → ECS Fargate)
• Database: PostgreSQL 16 (→ RDS Multi-AZ)
• Infra: Terraform · CI/CD: GitHub Actions → ECR → ECS
• Local: Docker Compose

🗂️ Project structure

aws-3tier-devops-project/
├── app/
│   ├── backend/        # FastAPI service (Dockerfile, tests)
│   │   └── app/        # main, models, schemas, crud, routers, seed
│   └── frontend/       # React + Vite SPA (Dockerfile, nginx.conf)
├── infra/              # Terraform for the AWS 3-tier stack (built on camera)
├── docs/
│   ├── system-design.md    # the "learn to think" writeup
│   ├── adr/                # Architecture Decision Records
│   └── images/             # diagram + screenshots
├── .github/workflows/  # CI/CD pipeline (built on camera)
├── docker-compose.yml  # one-command local stack
└── Makefile            # up · test · deploy · destroy

🛠️ Common commands

make up        # build & run the full stack
make test      # backend tests (in-memory SQLite — no DB needed)
make reset     # wipe the local database volume
make deploy    # terraform apply (provision on AWS)
make destroy   # tear down ALL AWS resources — no surprise bill
make help      # list everything

🔌 API reference

Method	Path	Description
GET	/health	Liveness + DB readiness (ALB target)
GET	/api/tasks	List tasks (?status= / ?priority= filters)
POST	/api/tasks	Create a task
GET	/api/tasks/{id}	Get one task
PATCH	/api/tasks/{id}	Update a task
DELETE	/api/tasks/{id}	Delete a task
GET	/api/stats	Counts by status

Interactive docs at /docs when running.

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☁️ Deploying to AWS

The infrastructure is built step by step in the video — this repo is tagged so you can jump to any stage and follow along:

Tag	Stage	What exists
v1-app	The app	Runs locally with Docker Compose
v2-terraform	Infrastructure	VPC, ALB, ECS, RDS via Terraform
v3-cicd	Pipeline	GitHub Actions → ECR → ECS on every merge

git checkout v2-terraform   # land exactly where the video is

Important

💸 Cost & teardown — read before you deploy

This stack uses services outside the AWS Free Tier (ALB, NAT Gateway, RDS). Rough cost if left running:

Resource	~ Cost
ALB	~$16/mo
NAT Gateway	~$32/mo
RDS db.t4g.micro Multi-AZ	~$25/mo
ECS Fargate (2 small tasks)	~$15/mo
Total	~$90/mo if left on 24/7

Always tear down when you're done:

make destroy

make destroy removes every billable resource. Spin it up, follow the video, prove it works, then destroy it — a few hours costs cents.

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🧠 For your resume & interviews

This project is designed to be talked about, not just built. See docs/system-design.md for how to present this architecture in a system-design interview — the trade-offs, the failure modes, and the "why" behind every box.

🤝 Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

📄 License

MIT © Muhammad Rashid (devopsbymuh)

⭐ If this helped, star the repo — it helps others find it.