If this works:

  # run your app locally
  $ dawson dev

They have that as advantage over serverless.com which is missing a dedicated local workflow

Is there an equivalent for the Python runtime? When I started using Lambda there wasnt, but I haven't looked at whether that changed since.

Zappa https://github.com/Miserlou/Zappa

and Chalice: https://github.com/awslabs/chalice

We'll ship full first-class support for the python runtime (including the dev server) in dawson in a few weeks.

Also if you don't want to install serverless-offline there is "serverless invoke local" built-in.

From what I saw in the documentation a difference seems to be

> You should be able to start using dawson without creating any configuration file

The configuration obviously exists. It is scattered around as

* environment variables for AWS secrets

* the api property of functions for defining path, params, etc [1]

* a package.json for everything else, maybe not necessary for a minimal deployment without db [2]

[1] https://dawson.sh/docs.html#4-function-configuration

[2] https://dawson.sh/docs.html#5-application-configuration

Thanks. The main goal here is to cover a couple of use cases without needing a single configuration line (aside from the app name, which is always required).

It all looks interesting, but I still don't see the advantage over pure Lambda? I get that it is a one command deployment, but really at the end of the day, does it save much time over zipping up my Node working folder and uploading to Lambda via the console? (In terms of installing extra framework stuff on my dev PC)

- it should make easier to replicate Lambdas to different AWS Regions or to use different stages (development, testing, production, ...)

- allows running of lambda functions locally, which significantly speeds up development

- provides you with a full production-ready environment (CloudFront + S3 + API Gateway + Lambda + ...) out of the box

What if you want to automate a build/deployment?

Ok, I see the logic if you want to set up some sort of continuous automation pipeline. From reading the documentation, it looks like this sets up a whole suite of services for a deployment, including CloudFront etc.? Anyone got a sample of a real world deployment using this framework? Any nasty hidden surprises in AWS billing that you've experienced by doing so? (Not snarky - asking out of actual interest)

> Any nasty hidden surprises in AWS billing that you've experienced by doing so?

- just a few cents of S3 Storage (if you're out of the free tier) to host versioned Lambda deployment packages - which will expire automatically anyway.

- in production, by default, dawson creates an AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) WebACL which cost ~5$/mo. You can opt out this behavior if you don't need one.