Your vibe-coded app is live. Now what? | AI Agents That Work
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Getting to a live URL is the easy part now.
The harder question is whether you actually own what you built.
Can you move it?
Can you debug it?
Can you explain the stack to a client?
Can you protect your API keys?
If the answer is "No 🙂↔️" or "I'm not sure 🥹" → your AI app is still a hosted prototype.
Here are the 7 things you need to deploy your vibe-coded app and own the whole stack on AWS:
7 AWS resources<br>Frontend host<br>S3 + CloudFront<br>Custom domain<br>Route 53<br>Backend API<br>API Gateway + Lambda<br>Deployment framework<br>AWS SAM<br>User authentication<br>Cognito User Pool<br>Login UI<br>Amplify UI<br>Database<br>DynamoDB
Also grab these<br>Secrets management<br>SSM Parameter Store<br>Monitoring + debugging<br>CloudWatch logs
1. Frontend host → S3 + CloudFront
Your frontend needs to live somewhere.
S3 stores your files.
CloudFront serves them fast, globally and with caching built in.
This is what hosting a static site on AWS means in practice:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
2. Custom domain → Route 53
Already have a custom domain? Great.
Route 53 is AWS's DNS service.
It's how you point yourapp.com at your CloudFront distribution instead of some auto-generated URL:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
3. Backend API → API Gateway + Lambda
API Gateway is the front door to your backend.
Lambda is the function that runs your backend code when a request comes in.
Together they give you a serverless API with no server to manage:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
4. Deployment framework → AWS SAM
AWS SAM is how you deploy your backend in code.
You describe your Lambda functions and API Gateway in a template and SAM handles the deployment:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
5. Auth → Cognito
Cognito manages your users:
sign up
sign in
tokens
password resets
Your API Gateway can use Cognito to protect your backend routes automatically:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
6. Login UI → Amplify UI
Amplify has a pre-built login and signup UI that wire directly into Cognito.
You drop in your code, configure your Cognito user pool and the login flow works:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
7. Database → DynamoDB
DynamoDB is AWS's serverless NoSQL database.
And yes, NoSQL is a hill I'll die on 🗣️
No connection strings.
No idle charges.
Scales automatically and integrates cleanly with Lambda:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
Full overview
Click any AWS resource in the diagram below to highlight how it connects to the rest of the stack:
1Frontend host2Custom domain3Backend API4AWS SAM5Auth6Login UI7Database<br>your userRoute 53S3 + CloudFrontAmplify UIAPI GatewayCognitoAWS SAMLambdaDynamoDB
Summary
Seven AWS services. That's the whole map.
You don't need to understand all of them on day one.
But you do need to know they exist and what each does.
Want to own the whole stack?<br>My upcoming course Ship It walks you from vibe-coded AI agent to deployed AWS app, step by step: frontend, backend, auth, API, database and deployment.<br>Join the waitlist:<br>EmailEmail
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If you'd rather walk through your specific app: what it does, where it lives, what it needs next Grab a free 30-min call ↗
I'll help you map it to the serverless AWS stack.
1. Frontend host → S3 + CloudFront<br>2. Custom domain → Route 53<br>3. Backend API → API Gateway + Lambda<br>4. Deployment framework → AWS SAM<br>5. Auth → Cognito<br>6. Login UI → Amplify UI<br>7. Database → DynamoDB<br>Full overview<br>Summary