This post will detail the steps to get a serverless slack command running on AWS Lambda using the Jets Serverless Ruby framework. We’ll make something fun: a command that takes in a URL, scrapes all the images on the page, filters the images using AWS image recognition, and posts the filtered images to the current slack channel. For example:

The jets new command has a few different modes: html, api, and job. We’ll use the handy api mode for this tutorial to create a starter project designed for APIs.

A great use case for AWS Lambda is running Cron Jobs. Instead of setting up a special one-off Cron server to run a simple task, we can just run the task on serverless nowadays. In this blog post, we’ll go over how to build a simple Cron Job with Jets, the Ruby Serverless Framework. As a useful practical example, we’ll create a job that backs up route53 records. This is quite handy when if you ever need it!

I created Jets, the Ruby Serverless Framework, over a year ago – way before AWS officially released Ruby Support for AWS Lambda. Although it would have been nice to have official Ruby support back then, it was all for the best because I was forced to learn a lot about AWS Lambda and Serverless in general – its strengths, weaknesses, and the challenges that one typically encounters.

In this post and video, we’ll cover how to deploy a Rails application to AWS Lambda Serverless in a few minutes. With Jets Afterburner, you don’t have to make any changes to your Rails application to get it on AWS Lambda. 🎉

This video tutorial demos the jets delete command. Since all the infrastructure is codified, deleting a Jets application is a straightforward process. What’s more interesting is that it is also easy to recreate the entire environment. jets delete For more info on the jets delete command, refer to its CLI reference.

Update 12/21/2018: An improved way to run Rails on AWS Lambda is now supported that is effortless. This blog post covers it: Jets Afterburner: Serverless Rails on AWS Lambda in 5 Minutes. It is also documented here: Jets Rails Support. It is recommended you use Jets Afterburner for simple cases. In the previous post: Jets Mega Mode: Run Rails on AWS Lambda, I covered how to get Rails running on AWS Lambda with Jets. In this video tutorial, I show you how to use the --submodule option for the same command we used to set things up previously: jets import:rails. Example: jets import:rails http://github.com/tongueroo/demo-rails.git --submodule Importing the Rails application as a submodule allows you to keep the Rails project in a separate repo. This allows you to manage the Rails project with a separate history and sync it with a Jets project when you want to. This is a useful setup if you are testing Jets Mega Mode Rails Support for an extended period of time.

Update 12/21/2018: An improved way to run Rails on AWS Lambda is now supported that is effortless. This blog post covers it: Jets Afterburner: Serverless Rails on AWS Lambda in 5 Minutes. It is also documented here: Jets Rails Support. It is recommended you use Jets Afterburner for simple cases. Jets allows you to run Rails applications on AWS Lambda via Mega Mode. The name reminds me of a few things: Mega Monolith: Rails applications can sometimes become a Majestic Monolith. Or sometimes it just becomes a Monolith 😁 Power Rangers Mega Mode: The Power Rangers can combine their Zords. Mega Man: This superhero can change his arm to use different special weapons. One of the things that makes him Mega Man. Mega Mode combines a Jets app and a Rack app together to allow you to run Rails on AWS Lambda with little effort. The docs for Rails Support are on the Ruby On Jets site. Here’s a Live Mega Mode Demo. We’ll go through an example of Mega Mode and get a Rails application running on AWS Lambda in this post.