Márcio Coelho

Posted on May 2

Supercharge Your Lambda Functions with Powertools for AWS Lambda

#aws #lambda #powertools #programming

Writing clean, observable, and maintainable Lambda functions can be challenging — especially at scale.

That’s where AWS Lambda Powertools for TypeScript comes in. It offers a suite of utilities to help with:

Structured logging
Distributed tracing
Custom metrics
Parameter and secret fetching
Reusable data providers (like DynamoDB)

In today’s post, we’ll walk through how to use some of the most useful features in a real-world Lambda function.

🧰 Installation

First, install Powertools packages:

npm install @aws-lambda-powertools/logger @aws-lambda-powertools/tracer @aws-lambda-powertools/metrics @aws-lambda-powertools/parameters

Optional (for DynamoDB provider):

npm install @aws-sdk/client-dynamodb

📝 Structured Logging with Logger

import { Logger } from '@aws-lambda-powertools/logger';

const logger = new Logger({ serviceName: 'UserService' });

export const handler = async (event) => {
  logger.info('Handling event', { event });

  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({ message: 'Hello World!' }),
  };
};

✅ Output is JSON-formatted and ready for CloudWatch, Datadog, or other log aggregators.

📦 Tracing with Tracer

import { Tracer } from '@aws-lambda-powertools/tracer';

const tracer = new Tracer({ serviceName: 'UserService' });

export const handler = async (event, context) => {
  const segment = tracer.getSegment();
  const subsegment = segment.addNewSubsegment('my-subtask');

  try {
    // your logic here
  } finally {
    subsegment.close();
  }

  return { statusCode: 200 };
};

💡 Tracer integrates with AWS X-Ray automatically if enabled.

📈 Metrics with Metrics

import { Metrics, MetricUnits } from '@aws-lambda-powertools/metrics';

const metrics = new Metrics({ namespace: 'MyApp' });

export const handler = async () => {
  metrics.addMetric('SuccessfulInvocations', MetricUnits.Count, 1);
  metrics.publishStoredMetrics();

  return { statusCode: 200 };
};

🎯 Automatically flushes metrics to CloudWatch.

🔑 Fetching Parameters with getParameter

import { getParameter } from '@aws-lambda-powertools/parameters/ssm';

export const handler = async () => {
  const dbName = await getParameter('/my-app/db-name');

  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({ dbName }),
  };
};

✅ You can also cache parameters:

await getParameter('/my-app/db-name', { maxAge: 300 }); // cache for 5 mins

🗃 DynamoDB Provider

import { getDynamoDBProvider } from '@aws-lambda-powertools/parameters/dynamo';

const dynamoDBProvider = getDynamoDBProvider({ tableName: 'Settings' });

export const handler = async () => {
  const setting = await dynamoDBProvider.get('theme'); // get row with PK 'theme'

  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({ theme: setting?.value }),
  };
};

💡 Great for config-driven apps with DynamoDB as your parameter store.

Conclusion
With Powertools for TypeScript, your Lambdas are:

✅ Easier to debug (thanks to structured logging)
✅ Easier to monitor (custom metrics)
✅ Easier to trace (end-to-end with X-Ray)
✅ Easier to configure (via SSM or DynamoDB)

It’s a must-have for production-grade serverless development.

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