ranbot-ai/aws-sst-development

SST v4 for AWS

When to Use

Use this skill when you need sST v4 (Ion) expert for managing AWS resources as code with the Pulumi-backed framework. Use when writing or editing sst.config.ts, building infra/ modules (sst.aws.Function/Bucket/Dynamo/Cron/Service/Router, sst.Secret, sst.Linkable, raw aws.* Pulumi resources), wiring resource links,...

SST v4 (the "Ion" engine) is a Pulumi-backed IaC framework: you describe AWS resources in TypeScript and SST/Pulumi reconciles them into your account. It gives you high-level sst.aws.* components (Function, Bucket, Dynamo, Cron, Service, …) that expand into many underlying resources, plus an escape hatch to any raw Pulumi aws.* resource for the long tail. This skill encodes a production-proven way to author, link, test, deploy, and troubleshoot SST stacks on AWS — distilled from real multi-stack projects that have paid for each lesson with a prod incident.

SST and Pulumi are third-party — verify current syntax with Context7 (resolve-library-id → query-docs for sst or pulumi-aws) when you're unsure about a component's options. Verify AWS-side facts (service limits, model IDs, IAM action names, region availability) with the AWS docs MCP, never from memory. The patterns here are the how; the docs are the what.

When you're invoked

Figure out which mode you're in and jump to the right reference:

| Situation | Go to | |-----------|-------| | New project, or adding a resource/module to an existing SST app | Author → references/authoring.md | | Wiring one module's output into another (links, SSM, IAM scope) | Author → references/authoring.md § Sharing | | Writing tests for infra so changes don't silently break | Test → references/testing.md | | Running a deploy, or a deploy just failed | Deploy/Operate → references/deploy-and-troubleshoot.md | | Migrating a resource between Pulumi types, renaming a physical name | Deploy/Operate → references/deploy-and-troubleshoot.md § Migrations |

Always read the relevant reference before editing — they carry the why behind each rule, which matters more than the rule itself.

Orientation: read the repo before you touch it

SST projects are conventional but not identical. Before editing, build a quick map so your change matches the house style instead of fighting it:

1. sst.config.ts — the app name, home, providers/region, defaultTags, any global $transform (Node runtime pin, bundle fixups), and the order in which run() imports infra/ modules. The import order is the dependency order; respect it.
2. infra/ — one file per domain (storage, functions, api, observability…). This is where resources are declared. Check for an infra/CLAUDE.md — these projects keep IaC-specific rules there, and it's the single most valuable file to read first.
3. infra/tests/ — source-level Vitest assertions that pin resource invariants. If they exist, your change must keep them green and probably needs a new assertion.
4. package.json / .nvmrc — package manager (npm vs pnpm), Node version, and the sst/pulumi versions actually installed.

Run npx sst version to confirm you're on v4/Ion (the $config + .sst/platform/ signature). v2/v3 ("SST Classic", CDK-based) is a different framework — these patterns don't apply there.

The conventions, and which are universal vs tunable

The projects this skill is built from share a deliberate house style. Some of it is universal (true for any SST v4 + AWS project — apply it everywhere); some is project-specific (a sensible default these projects chose — adopt it for consistency, but recognize a project may differ).

Universal — these principles hold for any SST v4 + AWS project:

• Control the Node runtime deliberately, in one place. Don't leave it to whatever the installed SST happens to default to. The idiom is a single global $transform(sst.aws.Function, (args) => { args.runtime ??= "nodejs24.x" }) in run() — ??= is correct here (the transform runs before the component applies its own default, so it fills in only when the user didn't set one). Recent SST already defaults to a current Node runtime, so check the installed default first (Context7); the transform is then version-independence insurance so a future SST downgrade can't silently move your fleet. See references/authoring.md.
• Never interpolate a Pulumi Output<T> into a plain JS template literal. Use $interpolate (or pulumi.interpolate). A bare top-level `${bucket.arn}/*` stringifies the Output to a [Output<T>] placeholder and produces a broken ARN that only fails at deploy time (it type-checks and sst dev runs fine). The fix is $interpolate​`${bucket.arn}/*`. This has caused prod deploy outages. See references/authoring.md § Outputs.
• Migrating a resource between Pulumi types should default to two PRs — Pulumi creates-before-de