Python Typings for AWS Lambda Function Events

April 10, 2022 #aws #lambda #python

I was building a Python-based AWS Lambda function similar to what was announced by New – Use Amazon S3 Event Notifications with Amazon EventBridge and the code looked similar to this - full of “magic strings” that I had to discover.

import boto3

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    bucket = event['detail']['bucket']['name']
    file_key = event['detail']['object']['key']

    s3 = boto3.client('s3')
    file_to_process = s3.get_object(Bucket=bucket, Key=file_key)

Python has a module called typing that provides support for type hints, which make for a nice autocomplete experience in Visual Studio Code. I started googling for some options and first found AWS Lambda Typing and it’s events/s3.py uses TypedDict from typing.

Here is the same code using those type definitions - still “magic strings” but they autocomplete.

from aws_lambda_typing import context as context_, events
from aws_lambda_typing.s3 import S3

def handler(event: events.EventBridgeEvent, context: context_.Context) -> None:
    event_detail: S3 = S3(event['detail'])
    bucket = event_detail['bucket']['name']
    file_key = event_detail['object']['key']

    s3 = boto3.client('s3')
    file_to_process = s3.get_object(Bucket=bucket, Key=file_key)

Next I found that Lambda Powertools Python has Event Source Data Classes and it’s s3_event.py uses custom DictWrapper class which “Provides a single read only access to a wrapper dict.”

Here is the same code using those type definitions - less “magic strings” and some properties.

import boto3
from aws_lambda_powertools.utilities.typing import LambdaContext
from aws_lambda_powertools.utilities.data_classes import event_source, EventBridgeEvent
from aws_lambda_powertools.utilities.data_classes.s3_event import S3Message

@event_source(data_class=EventBridgeEvent)
def lambda_handler(event: EventBridgeEvent, context: LambdaContext) -> None:

    # can use either event['detail'] or event.detail
    event_detail: S3Message = S3Message(event['detail'])
    bucket = event_detail.bucket.name
    file_key = event_detail.get_object.key

    s3 = boto3.client('s3')
    file_to_process = s3.get_object(Bucket=bucket, Key=file_key)