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AWS

An Alchemy app on AWS is one runtime — usually a Lambda Function — plus the resources it talks to: tables, buckets, queues, streams. You wire them together with typed bindings: call S3.PutObject(bucket) in your code and Alchemy attaches the matching least-privilege IAM statement to the function’s role. The code is the policy.

New here? Set up credentials first, then deploy your first Lambda.

Pick your runtime

Section titled “Pick your runtime”
  • Lambda — serverless, event-driven functions with public Function URLs. The primary documented path: every resource and event source in this section is shown running on Lambda.
  • ECS — long-running containers on Fargate. Alchemy bundles your Effect program into a Docker image and runs it as a Cluster + Service + Task.
  • EKS — managed Kubernetes (Auto Mode). Deployments, Jobs, raw manifests, and Helm charts in the same TypeScript program as the cluster — no YAML, no kubectl.
  • EC2 — full-control virtual machines, with the complete VPC networking toolkit around them.

Not sure which? See Choosing a runtime.

Data

Section titled “Data”
  • DynamoDB — key/value tables with GetItem/PutItem bindings and change-data-capture Streams.
  • S3 — object storage with GetObject/PutObject bindings and bucket event notifications.
  • RDS & Aurora — managed Postgres/MySQL: the Aurora helper stands up the whole cluster in one call, with a Connect binding or the Data API at runtime.

Messaging & events

Section titled “Messaging & events”
  • SQS — queues with a SendMessage binding and a Stream-shaped Lambda consumer.
  • SNS — pub/sub topics with a Publish binding and fan-out to queues and functions.
  • EventBridge & Scheduler — event buses, rules, and cron/rate schedules that invoke your functions.
  • Kinesis — ordered, sharded data streams with a PutRecord binding and the same Stream consumer surface.

Email

Section titled “Email”
  • Sending & managing email — verify an SES identity, send from a Lambda with the SendEmail binding, and manage identity policies, contact lists, dedicated IP pools, tenants, account settings, and deliverability insights.
  • Receiving inbound email — SES receipt rule sets and rules that store mail in S3, fan out to SNS, invoke a Lambda, or bounce it. Region-limited to us-east-1, us-west-2, and eu-west-1.

Security & secrets

Section titled “Security & secrets”
  • Secrets & env — .env values via Config, Secrets Manager when the secret is shared, generated, or rotated.

Observability

Section titled “Observability”
  • CloudWatch — dashboards and metric alarms, declared in the same Stack as the resources they watch.

Frontend & networking

Section titled “Frontend & networking”
  • Websites — the frontend block: static sites and built Vite apps on S3 + CloudFront as a single StaticSite resource.
  • VPC & networking — the Network helper and the VPC primitives, for when ECS, EKS, or EC2 needs explicit networking.

What are you building?

Section titled “What are you building?”
You’re building Reach for
An HTTP API Lambda + Function URL + DynamoDB
A typed HTTP API Effect HTTP API on Lambda
A typed API for external clients Effect RPC on Lambda
Drive a MicroVM from a Lambda (internal RPC) MicroVMs + Schemaless RPC
An ML training fleet HyperPod — Slurm or EKS orchestrated, with task governance
A REST API with stages/custom domains API Gateway
Your own domain on a site or API Custom domains with Route53 + ACM
A static site Deploy a static site on S3 + CloudFront
An event pipeline Kinesis → Lambda
Background jobs SQS + Lambda
Scheduled jobs EventBridge Scheduler → Lambda
A Postgres database RDS & Aurora
Kubernetes workloads or Helm charts EKS
Object processing S3 events
Sending transactional email SES sending — identity + SendEmail binding
Inbound email pipelines SES email receiving → S3 / SNS / Lambda
Change data capture DynamoDB Streams
API keys or credentials for a function Secrets & env

Where next

Section titled “Where next”