🫐 Acai (JavaScript)

Auto-loading, self-validating, minimalist JavaScript library for Amazon Web Service Lambdas

Acai delivers a DRY, configurable, declarative experience for building AWS Lambda integrations in JavaScript. It encourages Happy Path Programming—validate inputs first, eliminate defensive code, and keep business logic focused on success paths.

Need TypeScript bindings? Check out the companion package acai-ts for a fully typed experience.

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📖 Documentation

Full Documentation · Examples · Tutorial

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🎯 Why Acai?

• 🚀 Zero Boilerplate – File-based routing auto-loads handlers with minimal configuration.
• ✅ Built-in Validation – OpenAPI schema validation for API Gateway and event sources.
• 🧩 Extensible Middleware – Compose before, after, withAuth, and beforeAll/afterAll hooks effortlessly.
• 🔄 Event Helpers – Uniform abstractions for DynamoDB, S3, and SQS events with operation filtering.
• 🧪 Test Friendly – Lightweight surface area and deterministic responses make unit tests straightforward.
• 🌐 Serverless Friendly – Designed to slot into Serverless Framework, SAM, or raw Lambda stacks.

Happy Path Programming (HPP)

Validate early, then write business logic without guardrails and nested try/catch blocks. Acai pushes error handling to the edges, keeping the core flow clean and intention-revealing.

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⚡ Quick Start

const {Router} = require('acai').apigateway;

const router = new Router({
    basePath: 'v1',
    handlerPath: 'src/handlers',          // auto-expanded to src/handlers/**/*.js
    schemaPath: 'openapi.yml',            // optional: enable OpenAPI validation
    autoValidate: true,                   // validate requests automatically
    validateResponse: true                // validate responses before returning
});

exports.handler = async (event) => {
    return await router.route(event);
};

// File: src/handlers/users/index.js
exports.requirements = {
    post: {
        requiredBody: 'CreateUserRequest'
    }
};

exports.post = async (request, response) => {
    response.body = {
        id: '123',
        email: request.body.email
    };
    return response;
};

Pattern Routing via Globs

const router = new Router({
    basePath: 'api/v1',
    handlerPattern: 'src/controllers/**/*.controller.js'
});

Both handlerPath and handlerPattern feed the same resolver. handlerPath is shorthand for directory-style routing (**/*.js), while handlerPattern supports custom naming conventions.

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📦 Event Processing Examples

DynamoDB Streams

const {dynamodb} = require('acai');

exports.handler = async (event) => {
    const ddbEvent = new dynamodb.Event(event, {
        operations: ['create', 'update'],
        globalLogger: true
    });

    for (const record of ddbEvent.records) {
        console.log('Operation:', record.operation);
        console.log('New values:', record.body);
        console.log('Old values:', record.oldImage);
    }
};

S3 Object Hydration

const {s3} = require('acai');

exports.handler = async (event) => {
    const s3Event = new s3.Event(event, {
        getObject: true,
        isJSON: true
    });

    const records = await s3Event.getRecords();
    for (const record of records) {
        console.log('Bucket:', record.bucket.name);
        console.log('Key:', record.key);
        console.log('Parsed body:', record.body);
    }
};

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📦 Installation

npm install acai

Requirements

• Node.js: ≥ 22.19.0

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🧪 Testing

npm install
npm test

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🤝 Contributing

We welcome issues, feature requests, and pull requests! Please review the guidelines in CONTRIBUTING.md before you start. If you release a bug fix or enhancement, add an entry to CHANGELOG.md describing the change.

🧭 Agent Resources

• .agents/AGENTS.md – Contributor quick-start for day-to-day workflows and expectations.
• .agents/ARCHITECTURE.md – High-level design notes for the runtime and adapters.
• .agents/WARP.md – Operational guidance and runbooks for automation agents.

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📦 Related Packages

• acai-ts – TypeScript-first implementation with decorators and type metadata.