Deploy to AWS Lambda with Serverless Framework

This guide explains how to avoid common issues when deploying a project using Prisma with Serverless Framework.

The Serverless Framework simplifies deployment to AWS Lambda. It provides a CLI that helps with workflow automation and AWS resource provisioning. While Prisma works well with the Serverless Framework "out of the box", there are a few improvements that can be made within your project to ensure a smooth deployment and performance. There is also additional configuration that is needed if you are using the serverless-webpack or serverless-bundle libraries.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes you have an existing project using both Serverless Framework and Prisma. For a guide on how to get started with Serverless Framework, we recommend Setting Up Serverless Framework With AWS.

Binary targets in schema.prisma

The Prisma schema should contain the following in the generator block:

binaryTargets = ["native", "rhel-openssl-1.0.x"]

This is necessary because the runtime used in the development and when your application is deployed differ. Add the binaryTarget to make the compatible Prisma engine file available.

schema.prisma
1binaryTargets = ["native", "linux-arm64-openssl-1.0.x"]

Loading environment variables via a .env file

Your functions will need the DATABASE_URL environment variable to access the database. The serverless-dotenv-plugin will allow you to use your .env file in your deployments.

First, make sure that the plugin is installed:

$npm install -D serverless-dotenv-plugin

Then, add serverless-dotenv-plugin to your list of plugins in serverless.yml:

serverless.yml
1plugins:
2  - serverless-dotenv-plugin

The environment variables in your .env file will now be automatically loaded on package or deployment.

$serverless package

Connection pooling

Generally, when you use a FaaS (Function as a Service) environment to interact with a database, every function invocation can result in a new connection to the database. This is not a problem with a constantly running Node.js server. Therefore, it is beneficial to pool DB connections to get better performance. You can use Accelerate to solve this issue. For other solutions, see the connection management guide for serverless environments.

Deploy only the required files

To reduce your deployment footprint, you can update your deployment process to only upload the files your application needs. The Serverless configuration file, serverless.yml, below shows a package pattern that includes only the Prisma engine file relevant to the Lambda runtime and excludes the others. This means that when Serverless Framework packages your app for upload, it includes only one engine file. This ensures the packaged archive is as small as possible.

serverless.yml
1package:
2  patterns:
3    - '!node_modules/.prisma/client/libquery_engine-*'
4    - 'node_modules/.prisma/client/libquery_engine-rhel-*'
5    - '!node_modules/prisma/libquery_engine-*'
6    - '!node_modules/@prisma/engines/**'

If you are deploying to Lambda functions with ARM64 architecture you should update the Serverless configuration file to package the arm64 engine file, as follows:

serverless.yml
1package:
2  patterns:
3    - '!node_modules/.prisma/client/libquery_engine-*'
4    - 'node_modules/.prisma/client/libquery_engine-linux-arm64-*'
5    - '!node_modules/prisma/libquery_engine-*'
6    - '!node_modules/@prisma/engines/**'

If you use serverless-webpack, see Deployment with serverless webpack below.

Deployment with serverless-webpack

If you use serverless-webpack, you will need additional configuration so that your schema.prisma is properly bundled. You will need to:

1. Copy your schema.prisma with copy-webpack-plugin.
2. Run prisma generate via custom > webpack > packagerOptions > scripts in your serverless.yml.
3. Only package the correct Prisma engine file to save more than 40mb of capacity.

$npm install --save-dev webpack webpack-node-externals copy-webpack-plugin serverless-webpack

webpack.config.js
1const nodeExternals = require('webpack-node-externals')
2
3module.exports = {
4  // ... other configuration
5  externals: [nodeExternals()],
6  // ... other configuration
7}

webpack.config.js
1const nodeExternals = require('webpack-node-externals')
2const CopyPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin')
3
4module.exports = {
5  // ... other configuration
6  externals: [nodeExternals()],
7  plugins: [
8    new CopyPlugin({
9      patterns: [
10        { from: './node_modules/.prisma/client/schema.prisma', to: './' }, // you may need to change `to` here.
11      ],
12    }),
13  ],
14  // ... other configuration
15}

serverless.yml
1custom:
2  webpack:
3    packagerOptions:
4      scripts:
5        - prisma generate

serverless.yml
1custom:
2  webpack:
3    packagerOptions:
4      scripts:
5        - prisma generate
+        - find . -name "libquery_engine-*" -not -name "libquery_engine-rhel-openssl-*" | xargs rm

serverless.yml
1custom:
2  webpack:
3    packagerOptions:
4      scripts:
5        - prisma generate
+        - find . -name "libquery_engine-*" -not -name "libquery_engine-arm64-openssl-*" | xargs rm

$serverless package

Summary

You have successfully deployed a Prisma-backed Serverless Framework application. Congratulations!