What is AWS CodeStar?
Think of AWS CodeStar as a project starter and management hub. Instead of manually setting up and integrating individual services like CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, and CodePipeline, CodeStar does it for you. It provisions all the necessary underlying AWS resources based on a selected template, providing a ready-to-use development environment.
Key Features
1. Project Templates
CodeStar provides a variety of project templates that serve as starting points for your application. These templates are pre-configured for different compute platforms and programming languages.
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Compute Platforms: Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and AWS Lambda.
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Programming Languages: Supports popular languages like Java, Python, Node.js (JavaScript), PHP, Ruby, and ASP.NET.
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Each template comes with sample code and a pre-configured CI/CD pipeline.
2. Integrated CI/CD Toolchain
When you create a CodeStar project, it automatically provisions and configures a complete AWS developer toolchain:
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AWS CodeCommit: A private Git repository is created to host your project's source code.
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AWS CodeBuild: A build project is set up to compile your code, run tests, and produce artifacts.
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AWS CodeDeploy: A deployment application is configured to deploy your code to the target compute platform.
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AWS CodePipeline: A pipeline is created to orchestrate the entire source-build-test-deploy workflow automatically on every code commit.
3. Unified Project Dashboard
Each CodeStar project includes a centralized dashboard that provides a single place to monitor and manage your application.
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Pipeline Visualization: See the status of your entire CI/CD pipeline, including code commits, builds, and deployments.
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Application Monitoring: Integrates with Amazon CloudWatch to show application activity and performance metrics.
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Issue Tracking: Can be integrated with issue tracking tools like Atlassian JIRA to manage project tasks directly from the dashboard.
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Wiki: Each project has a wiki for sharing team information, links, and project documentation.
4. Simplified Team Access Management
CodeStar simplifies IAM permission management for your team. It provides three built-in project roles, making it easy to grant appropriate access without deep IAM knowledge.
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Owner: Has full control over the project. Can add/remove team members, modify the dashboard, and delete the project.
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Contributor: Can work on the project code and change the dashboard but cannot manage team members or delete the project.
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Viewer: Has read-only access. Can view the project dashboard, code, and status but cannot make any changes.
5. IDE Integration
CodeStar supports direct integration with popular Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), allowing developers to code, commit, and push changes from their local workflow. Supported IDEs include:
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AWS Cloud9
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Microsoft Visual Studio
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Eclipse
How AWS CodeStar Works
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Choose a Project Template: You start by selecting a template that matches your application's language and target platform.
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Name Your Project: Provide a name for your project. CodeStar uses this to name the resources it creates.
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Set Up Repository: Choose to either host your code in a new AWS CodeCommit repository created by CodeStar or connect to an existing GitHub repository.
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Provisioning: CodeStar provisions all the necessary resources, including the CI/CD pipeline, source repository, build project, and deployment target. This can take a few minutes.
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Start Developing: Once provisioning is complete, you are taken to the project dashboard. You can clone the repository, start committing code, and watch as the pipeline automatically builds and deploys your changes.
Security and Pricing
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Security: All data at rest within CodeStar is encrypted by default using AWS-managed keys. Access is securely managed via the predefined IAM roles.
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Pricing: There is no additional charge for using AWS CodeStar itself. You only pay for the underlying AWS resources that are provisioned for your project (e.g., the EC2 instances, S3 storage for artifacts, and CodeBuild run time).