@aws-blocks/bb-dashboard

Auto-generated CloudWatch Dashboard for application observability.

Design & mock parity details: DESIGN.md

When to Use

• You've deployed your app and want a single URL to view application health
• You want pre-configured widgets without manually creating CloudWatch dashboards
• You need a team dashboard for deployment validation and operational awareness

When NOT to Use

• You need custom visualizations or interactive data exploration → use CloudWatch console

Installation

npm install @aws-blocks/bb-dashboard

Quick Start

Minimal

import { Dashboard } from '@aws-blocks/bb-dashboard';

const dashboard = new Dashboard(scope, 'dashboard');
// After deploy: a CloudWatch Dashboard with a health + logs section for every
// compute in the app.

With metrics + a Tracer (Recommended)

The dashboard is organized by compute — each compute in the app is a group. Every group shows a health section and a logs section (logs are always captured). A traces section appears when the app contains a Tracer (tracing is presence-gated: any Tracer turns on X-Ray for every compute). You do not pass Logger / Tracer instances to the dashboard. Metrics are app-scoped (a namespace isn't tied to a compute), so they're passed explicitly, one section per namespace.

import { Metrics } from '@aws-blocks/bb-metrics';
import { Tracer } from '@aws-blocks/bb-tracer';

new Tracer(scope, 'tracing');    // → traces section on every compute
const metrics = new Metrics(scope, 'metrics', { namespace: 'MyApp' });

const dashboard = new Dashboard(scope, 'dashboard', {
  title: 'MyApp — Production',
  // Display toggles (default true) applied to every compute section.
  logs: true,
  traces: true,
  // app-wide; pair each Metrics BB with its own metric names (per-namespace).
  // Also accepts an array of sources, one section per namespace.
  metrics: {
    metrics,
    metricConfigs: [
      { name: 'OrdersPlaced' },
      { name: 'Latency', stat: 'p99', period: 300, title: 'P99 Latency' },
      { name: 'CustomMetric', dimensions: { Service: 'API', Stage: 'prod' } },
    ],
  },
});

How the dashboard resolves each section:

• Health — the compute's health section, always shown.
• Logs — shown for every compute (logs are always captured); log group is the compute's own handler log group. Suppress with logs: false.
• Traces — shown for a compute when tracing is enabled on it (the app contains a Tracer). Suppress with traces: false.
• Metrics — app-wide, from the metrics option: uses each BB's resolved namespace (defaults to its scope fullId) and defaultDimensions (included in widget queries so they target the correct dimensioned stream).
• Compute coverage — always every compute in the app (one today). No compute selector is exposed yet.

API Reference

new Dashboard(scope, id, options?)

Creates a CloudWatch Dashboard with auto-generated widgets.

Parameters:

Properties:

DashboardOptions

Display toggles

Logs and traces are section display toggles, not composition inputs — the dashboard reads each compute's state directly. Logs are always captured (so logs only hides the section); traces exist only when the app has a Tracer (so traces only hides an otherwise-present section).

The dashboard always covers every compute in the app. There is no compute selector yet — one arrives with the multi-compute customer surface (it would otherwise leak an internal type before customers can construct a compute).

Metrics composition

Configuration

MetricConfig

Configuration for a single pre-registered CloudWatch metric.

Error Constants

import { DashboardErrors } from '@aws-blocks/bb-dashboard';

DashboardErrors.InvalidMetricConfig // 'InvalidMetricConfigException'

• InvalidMetricConfig: Thrown when a metric configuration is invalid (e.g., empty name or invalid period).

Note: InvalidMetricConfig is thrown during CDK synthesis while building widgets, not by the mock/runtime Dashboard constructor.

Auto-Generated Widgets

The following widgets are always included:

Grouped per compute, then an app-wide metrics section:

(Health widgets are Lambda-shaped for the default compute; other compute types report their own health metrics.)

Dashboard Redirect Route

The Dashboard BB registers a GET route (default: /aws-blocks/dashboard) that 302-redirects to the CloudWatch Dashboard console URL. This provides a convenient, discoverable entry point for developers. Set routePath: false to disable.

• In AWS: Redirects to the full CloudWatch console URL (requires AWS login).
• In local dev: Returns 503 with a message to deploy first.

// Custom route path
const dashboard = new Dashboard(scope, 'dashboard', {
  routePath: '/ops/dashboard',
});
// GET /ops/dashboard → 302 → https://<region>.console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/...

Log Group

Each compute's log section queries that compute's own handler log group (the framework-owned group the compute provisions). Logs are always captured, so the log widgets appear for every compute unless you set logs: false.

Local Development

In local dev mode, the mock registers the redirect route but returns 503 (since no CloudWatch Dashboard exists locally):

[Dashboard] Dashboard BB: no-op in local mode (CloudWatch Dashboard is a cloud-only resource).
Will create CloudWatch Dashboard 'My App' on deploy. Run 'npx cdk deploy' to view.

📍 Local observability data:
   • Logs: Check your terminal output - Logger BB writes structured JSON to stdout
   • Metrics: Metrics BB writes EMF-formatted JSON to stdout (visible in terminal)
   • Traces: Tracer stores mock traces to .bb-data/ and logs them to stdout

Scaling & Cost

• Free tier: Up to 3 dashboards with 50 metrics each
• Beyond free tier: $3/dashboard/month
• No runtime cost: Dashboards are static read-only views
• No API calls at request time

Namespace Resolution

The metrics namespace is read from the Metrics BB's namespace property. The Metrics BB resolves this internally from its options (explicit namespace or fallback to scope fullId).

const metrics = new Metrics(scope, 'metrics', { namespace: 'MyApp/Orders' });
const dashboard = new Dashboard(scope, 'dashboard', { metrics });
// Dashboard uses 'MyApp/Orders' as the CloudWatch namespace

Default Dimensions

When a Metrics BB has defaultDimensions configured, the Dashboard automatically includes those dimensions in widget queries. This ensures widgets target the same dimensioned metric stream that the runtime emits to. Per-metric dimensions in MetricConfig are merged on top (per-metric wins on conflict).

const metrics = new Metrics(scope, 'metrics', {
  namespace: 'MyApp/Orders',
  defaultDimensions: { service: 'orders', env: 'prod' },
});

const dashboard = new Dashboard(scope, 'dashboard', {
  metrics: {
    metrics,
    metricConfigs: [
      { name: 'OrdersPlaced' },  // queries with { service: 'orders', env: 'prod' }
      { name: 'Latency', dimensions: { endpoint: '/api' } },  // { service: 'orders', env: 'prod', endpoint: '/api' }
    ],
  },
});