Q-Bits: Simplifying Event-Driven Architectures with Amazon Q Developer

Welcome to another installment of Q-Bits, our regular series showcasing cool ways Amazon employees are leveraging Amazon Q Developer. Today, we're diving into how Q Developer can assist with building event-driven architectures using DynamoDB streams and deploy with with AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM).

Building a Real-Time Food Ordering System
Recently, I needed to build and demo a real-time food ordering system that could process orders instantly and notify various services as order statuses changed. The architecture required DynamoDB Streams to capture changes and trigger appropriate Lambda functions - a perfect use case for event-driven architecture, but one that traditionally requires careful configuration.

Getting Started with Q Developer
Instead of diving straight into documentation, I turned to Amazon Q Developer in the CLI. First, I asked it to explain how DynamoDB Streams and SAM work together:

Q Developer provided a clear, concise explanation:

Creating the Project
When starting the project, I asked Q Developer to go ahead and create the architecture that it had previously described.

By pressing ‘t’ I provided Q Developer access to be able to create a test project for me. It decided to create the project in a new directory called good-ordering-app. Q made the following project:

Q Developer generated a well-structured template with all necessary components:

What impressed me most was how Q Developer automatically included:

Q Developer provides a full description of each piece of the application and how it ties into the overall architecture. Instructions were also provided for how to deploy the application using AWS SAM, however I asked Q Developer to deploy this for me.

Q proceeded to run the commands to build and deploy my application for me. During this process, it noticed that the AWS SAM CLI was not installed locally on my machine and was able to install it for me and continue with the deployment.

At the end of this process I had a fully deployed food ordering application, and I was provided all of the necessary information to get started using my application:

Troubleshooting and Optimization
Q Developer really showed its value when I encountered issues with stream processing latency. I shared my configuration, and it immediately spotted potential improvements:

The suggested optimizations included:

To continue building my app, I am going to ask Q to make me a UI for this application as well. However, that is for another Q-Bit.

Conclusion
When starting the project, Q Developer was able to provide insight into architectural best practices of event driven architectures on AWS and help me get started building an app. Amazon Q Developer transformed what could have been a complex implementation process into a guided, educational experience. It helped me:

The resulting food ordering system is not only functional but also follows AWS best practices for event-driven architectures. Q Developer's ability to provide contextual guidance and generate boilerplate code significantly accelerated the development process.