Ze Great Dashboard on AWS

@continuous-excellence/ze-great-dashboard-aws validates and packages a board for a private AWS Lambda or ECS deployment. It includes the server runtime, deployment CLI, and CloudFormation templates. The matching immutable browser client is published separately as @continuous-excellence/ze-great-dashboard-client and is selected automatically unless you provide another exact asset URL.

This package is for teams that already operate AWS and can provide a protected entry path:

• Lambda requires a consumer-owned API Gateway, ALB, or equivalent gateway with private invocation permission.
• ECS requires consumer-owned subnets, security groups, and protected load balancing or routing for the long-lived Fargate service.

In both modes, a consumer-owned gateway or load balancer defines the public entry and authentication boundary.

The templates create no public endpoint, choose no authentication policy, and manage no secret values. To evaluate the dashboard without AWS, start with the local setup.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or newer, npm, the AWS CLI, and jq.
• An AWS administrator for one-time bootstrap.
• A pre-existing account-level GitHub OIDC provider and protected GitHub Environment when GitHub Actions will deploy the dashboard.
• Consumer-owned networking, gateway or load balancing, authentication, and runtime health checks.

Choose and bootstrap a compute mode

Lambda is the compatibility default. Select ECS with --mode ecs when running bootstrap init. The choice is stored in dashboard-bootstrap.json and generated application parameters as ComputeMode; older files without the field mean Lambda.

An explicit mode that conflicts with persisted configuration fails. Changing between Lambda and ECS requires regenerated, administrator-reviewed bootstrap and application parameters—it is not a routine package option.

Follow the AWS bootstrap guide, then the Lambda deployment guide.

Package a deployment

Pin the reviewed package version in the repository that owns the deployment:

npm install --save-exact @continuous-excellence/ze-great-dashboard-aws

Append @version when installing a previously reviewed release rather than the current one. After bootstrap, generate and diagnose application parameters, then package the board:

npm exec -- ze-great-dashboard-aws parameters \
  --bootstrap-config dashboard-bootstrap.json \
  --output aws-dashboard-parameters.json

npm exec -- ze-great-dashboard-aws doctor \
  --parameters aws-dashboard-parameters.json \
  --region us-east-1

npm exec -- ze-great-dashboard-aws package \
  --board-config board.yaml \
  --parameters aws-dashboard-parameters.json \
  --output aws-dashboard-release

For ECS, the persisted parameters select the ECS template and package also requires an immutable, digest-pinned image through --image. The generated deployment.json contains structured upload and CloudFormation command arguments for the approved deployment process to invoke.

package writes release-specific parameters.json, deployment.json, and template.yml, plus lambda.zip for Lambda. Changing board.yaml or the pinned package version uses this same path. Run the read-only bootstrap check before every deployment.

Private source credentials

Public GitHub repositories and unauthenticated HTTP sources work without credentials. For private sources, set SecretReference to the ARN of one consumer-owned Secrets Manager JSON value or Parameter Store SecureString, for example:

{ "GITHUB_TOKEN": "github_pat_…" }

The board references GITHUB_TOKEN through token_env; the credential value never belongs in the board, bootstrap manifest, CloudFormation parameters, runtime environment variables, logs, API responses, or browser. The runtime reads only the exact secret or parameter authorized by the application role, resolves configured token_env names only at Lambda cold start, and fails closed when a key is absent.

Ownership boundaries

Bootstrap commands do not perform mutating AWS operations. They emit plans, parameters, captures, and command arguments for an administrator to review and invoke. bootstrap check is the read-only live diagnostic used before routine deployments; when it fails, use the bootstrap upgrade runbook.

References

• Board configuration
• Administrator bootstrap
• Lambda deployment
• GitHub Actions deployment
• Issue tracker