Lambda-local

Lambda-local lets you test NodeJS Amazon Lambda functions on your local machine, by providing a simplistic API and command-line tool.
It does not aim to be perfectly feature proof as projects like serverless-offline or docker-lambda, but rather to remain very light (it still provides a fully built Context, handles all of its parameters and functions, and everything is customizable easily).
The main target are unit tests and running lambda functions locally.

Install

npm install -g lambda-local

Build

make build

npm install
npm install --only=dev
npm run build

Usage

As an API: You can also use Lambda local directly in a script. For instance, it is interesting in a MochaJS test suite in order to get test coverage.
As a command line tool: You can use Lambda-local as a command line tool.

If you’re unsure about some definitions, see Definitions for terminology.

About: API

LambdaLocal

API accessible with:

const lambdaLocal = require("lambda-local");

Or on TypeScript (supported on 1.7.0+):

import lambdaLocal = require("lambda-local");

`lambdaLocal.execute(options)`

Executes a lambda given the options object, which is a dictionary where the keys may be:

Key name
Description

event
requested event as a json object

lambdaPath
requested path to the lambda function

lambdaFunc
pass the lambda function. You cannot use it at the same time as lambdaPath

profilePath
optional, path to your AWS credentials file

profileName
optional, aws profile name. Must be used with

lambdaHandler
optional handler name, default to handler

region
optional, AWS region, default to us-east-1

timeoutMs
optional, timeout, default to 3000 ms

environment
optional, extra environment variables for the lambda

envfile
optional, load an environment file before booting

envdestroy
optional, destroy added environment on closing, default to false

verboseLevel
optional, default 3. Level 2 dismiss handler() text, level 1 dismiss lambda-local text and level 0 dismiss also the result.

callback
optional, lambda third parameter callback. When left out a Promise is returned

clientContext
optional, used to populated clientContext property of lambda second parameter (context)

`lambdaLocal.setLogger(logger)`

`lambdaLocal.getLogger()`

Those functions allow to access the winston logger used by lambda-local.

API examples

A lot of examples, especially used among Mocha, may be found in the test files over: here

Basic usage: Using Promises

const lambdaLocal = require('lambda-local');

var jsonPayload = {
    'key': 1,
    'another_key': "Some text"
}

lambdaLocal.execute({
    event: jsonPayload,
    lambdaPath: path.join(__dirname, 'path_to_index.js'),
    profilePath: '~/.aws/credentials',
    profileName: 'default',
    timeoutMs: 3000
}).then(function(done) {
    console.log(done);
}).catch(function(err) {
    console.log(err);
});

Basic usage: using callbacks

const lambdaLocal = require('lambda-local');

var jsonPayload = {
    'key': 1,
    'another_key': "Some text"
}

lambdaLocal.execute({
    event: jsonPayload,
    lambdaPath: path.join(__dirname, 'path_to_index.js'),
    profilePath: '~/.aws/credentials',
    profileName: 'default',
    timeoutMs: 3000,
    callback: function(err, data) {
        if (err) {
            console.log(err);
        } else {
            console.log(data);
        }
    },
    clientContext: JSON.stringify({clientId: 'xxxx'})
});

About: CLI

Available Arguments

-l, --lambda-path <lambda index path> (required) Specify Lambda function file name.
-e, --event-path <event path> (required –watch is not in use) Specify event data file name.
-h, --handler <handler name> (optional) Lambda function handler name. Default is “handler”.
-t, --timeout <timeout> (optional) Seconds until lambda function timeout. Default is 3 seconds.
-r, --region <aws region> (optional) Sets the AWS region, defaults to us-east-1.
-P, --profile-path <aws profile name> (optional) Read the specified AWS credentials file.
-p, --profile <aws profile name> (optional) Use with -P: Read the AWS profile of the file.
-E, --environment <JSON {key:value}> (optional) Set extra environment variables for the lambda
--wait-empty-event-loop (optional) Sets callbackWaitsForEmptyEventLoop=True => will wait for an empty loop before returning. This is false by default because our implementation isn’t perfect and only “emulates” it.
--envdestroy (optional) Destroy added environment on closing. Defaults to false
-v, --verboselevel <3/2/1/0> (optional) Default 3. Level 2 dismiss handler() text, level 1 dismiss lambda-local text and level 0 dismiss also the result.
--envfile <path/to/env/file> (optional) Set extra environment variables from an env file
--inspect [[host:]port] (optional) Starts lambda-local using the NodeJS inspector (available in nodejs > 8.0.0)
-W, --watch [port] (optional) Starts lambda-local in watch mode listening to the specified port [1-65535].

CLI examples

# Simple usage
lambda-local -l index.js -h handler -e examples/s3-put.js

# Input environment variables
lambda-local -l index.js -h handler -e examples/s3-put.js -E '{"key":"value","key2":"value2"}'

Running lambda functions as a HTTP Server

A simple way you can run lambda functions locally, without the need to create any special template files (like Serverless plugin and SAM requires), just adding the parameter --watch. It will raise a http server listening to the specified port (default is 8008), then you can pass the event payload to the handler via request body.

lambda-local -l examples/handler_helloworld.js -h handler --watch 8008

curl --request POST 
  --url http://localhost:8008/ 
  --header 'content-type: application/json' 
  --data '{
	"event": {
		"key1": "value1",
		"key2": "value2",
		"key3": "value3"
	}
}'

About: Definitions

Event data

Event sample data are placed in examples folder – feel free to use the files in here, or create your own event data.
Event data are just JSON objects exported:

// Sample event data
module.exports = {
	foo: "bar"
};

Context

The context object has been sampled from what’s visible when running an actual Lambda function on AWS, and the available documentation
They may change the internals of this object, and Lambda-local does not guarantee that this will always be up-to-date with the actual context object.

AWS-SDK

As of version 2.0.0, lambda-local no longer packages AWS-SDK in its dependencies. To run a function that makes use of this module, make sure to install it as a dependency in your project.

Development

Run make to install npm modules. (Required to develop & test lambda-local)
Run make test to execute the mocha test.
Run make clean to reset the repository.

License

This library is released under the MIT license.