Use cases & reference architectures

Describe it, refine it, export it — and run it locally when MiniStack supports the services.

Serverless REST API

Architecture

  1. Client
  2. API Gateway
  3. Lambda
  4. DynamoDB

Client → API Gateway → Lambda → DynamoDB. The classic pay-per-use backend: designed from one sentence, exported to Terraform and testable locally before you touch an AWS account.

Try this prompt

“A serverless REST API with API Gateway, Lambda and DynamoDB, with logs in CloudWatch”

Run the simulation to route traffic to the deployed MiniStack resources.

DiagramTerraformLocal deploySimulation

Event-driven fan-out

Architecture

  1. EventBridge
  2. SNS
  3. SQS
  4. Lambda

EventBridge routes events to an SNS topic that fans out to SQS queues consumed by Lambda workers. Deploy it to MiniStack and publish from the consoles to watch messages flow.

Try this prompt

“An event-driven architecture: an EventBridge bus, an SNS topic fanning out to two SQS queues, each processed by a Lambda function”

DiagramTerraformLocal deploy

Real-time streaming ingestion

Architecture

  1. Kinesis
  2. Lambda
  3. S3
  4. DynamoDB

Producers write to a Kinesis stream; Lambda processes batches, stores raw events in S3 and keeps aggregates in DynamoDB.

Try this prompt

“Clickstream ingestion with a Kinesis stream, a Lambda consumer, S3 for raw events and DynamoDB for aggregates”

Kinesis streams deploy locally as single-shard streams and have no interactive console.

DiagramTerraformLocal deploy

Data lake ETL with AWS Glue

Architecture

  1. S3 (raw)
  2. AWS Glue
  3. S3 (curated)
  4. Athena

Land raw files in S3, catalog them with Glue, transform with a PySpark job into a curated bucket and query with Athena. With MiniStack the PySpark job runs for real in a local Glue container — no AWS account, no cost.

Try this prompt

“A data lake: an S3 raw bucket, an AWS Glue catalog and PySpark ETL job, an S3 curated bucket, queried with Athena”

Needs the :full MiniStack image, the Docker socket and the OpenArchFlow Glue image. Terraform export covers S3, the Glue catalog database and the Athena workgroup; jobs are authored in Glue Studio.

DiagramNative GlueLocal deployTerraform

Three-tier web app on ECS

Architecture

  1. CloudFront
  2. ALB
  3. ECS Fargate
  4. RDS

Route 53 and CloudFront in front of an ALB, containers on ECS Fargate, RDS for persistence and ElastiCache for sessions, inside a VPC with public and private subnets. Ideal for design reviews, Terraform scaffolding and cost estimates.

Try this prompt

“A three-tier web app: CloudFront, an ALB, an ECS Fargate service, RDS PostgreSQL and ElastiCache Redis inside a VPC with public and private subnets across two AZs”

These services are not part of the one-click local deploy.

DiagramTerraformCost estimate

Document an existing AWS account

Architecture

  1. AWS account
  2. Import
  3. Diagram
  4. Terraform

Scan a live account, import 24 supported services as an editable diagram with connections inferred from ARNs, then export it to Terraform to start bringing legacy infrastructure under IaC.

How it works

Import from AWS → pick services and resources → refine the diagram → export Terraform

Supports AWS SSO or access keys. A permission error on one service doesn't block the rest of the scan.

AWS importDiagramTerraform

One-click local deploy currently covers 14 service types: S3, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Kinesis, API Gateway, IAM, KMS, Secrets Manager, SSM, CloudWatch Logs and Glue. Everything else is available for design, Terraform export and, where supported, cost estimates.

Start designing your AWS architecture today

Free, open-source, and local-first. No account required.