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AppSync Events

Event Handler for AWS AppSync real-time events.

stateDiagram-v2
    direction LR
    EventSource: AppSync Events
    EventHandlerResolvers: Publish & Subscribe events
    LambdaInit: Lambda invocation
    EventHandler: Event Handler
    EventHandlerResolver: Route event based on namespace/channel
    YourLogic: Run your registered handler function
    EventHandlerResolverBuilder: Adapts response to AppSync contract
    LambdaResponse: Lambda response

    state EventSource {
        EventHandlerResolvers
    }

    EventHandlerResolvers --> LambdaInit

    LambdaInit --> EventHandler
    EventHandler --> EventHandlerResolver

    state EventHandler {
        [*] --> EventHandlerResolver: app.resolve(event, context)
        EventHandlerResolver --> YourLogic
        YourLogic --> EventHandlerResolverBuilder
    }

    EventHandler --> LambdaResponse

Key Features

  • Easily handle publish and subscribe events with dedicated handler methods
  • Automatic routing based on namespace and channel patterns
  • Support for wildcard patterns to create catch-all handlers
  • Process events in parallel or sequentially
  • Control over event aggregation for batch processing
  • Graceful error handling for individual events

Terminology

AWS AppSync Events. A service that enables you to quickly build secure, scalable real-time WebSocket APIs without managing infrastructure or writing API code. It handles connection management, message broadcasting, authentication, and monitoring, reducing time to market and operational costs.

Getting started

Tip: New to AppSync Real-time API?

Visit AWS AppSync Real-time documentation to understand how to set up subscriptions and pub/sub messaging.

Required resources

You must have an existing AppSync Events API with real-time capabilities enabled and IAM permissions to invoke your Lambda function.

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Resources:
    WebsocketAPI:
        Type: AWS::AppSync::Api
        Properties:
            EventConfig:
            AuthProviders:
                - AuthType: API_KEY
            ConnectionAuthModes:
                - AuthType: API_KEY
            DefaultPublishAuthModes:
                - AuthType: API_KEY
            DefaultSubscribeAuthModes:
                - AuthType: API_KEY
            Name: RealTimeEventAPI

    WebasocketApiKey:
        Type: AWS::AppSync::ApiKey
        Properties:
            ApiId: !GetAtt WebsocketAPI.ApiId
            Description: "API KEY"
            Expires: 365

    WebsocketAPINamespace:
        Type: AWS::AppSync::ChannelNamespace
        Properties:
            ApiId: !GetAtt WebsocketAPI.ApiId
            Name: powertools

AppSync request and response format

AppSync Events uses a specific event format for Lambda requests and responses. In most scenarios, Powertools for AWS simplifies this interaction by automatically formatting resolver returns to match the expected AppSync response structure.

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{
    "identity":"None",
    "result":"None",
    "request":{
       "headers": {
        "x-forwarded-for": "1.1.1.1, 2.2.2.2",
        "cloudfront-viewer-country": "US",
        "cloudfront-is-tablet-viewer": "false",
        "via": "2.0 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)",
        "cloudfront-forwarded-proto": "https",
        "origin": "https://us-west-1.console.aws.amazon.com",
        "content-length": "217",
        "accept-language": "en-US,en;q=0.9",
        "host": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.appsync-api.us-west-1.amazonaws.com",
        "x-forwarded-proto": "https",
        "user-agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.83 Safari/537.36",
        "accept": "*/*",
        "cloudfront-is-mobile-viewer": "false",
        "cloudfront-is-smarttv-viewer": "false",
        "accept-encoding": "gzip, deflate, br",
        "referer": "https://us-west-1.console.aws.amazon.com/appsync/home?region=us-west-1",
        "content-type": "application/json",
        "sec-fetch-mode": "cors",
        "x-amz-cf-id": "3aykhqlUwQeANU-HGY7E_guV5EkNeMMtwyOgiA==",
        "x-amzn-trace-id": "Root=1-5f512f51-fac632066c5e848ae714",
        "authorization": "eyJraWQiOiJScWFCSlJqYVJlM0hrSnBTUFpIcVRXazNOW...",
        "sec-fetch-dest": "empty",
        "x-amz-user-agent": "AWS-Console-AppSync/",
        "cloudfront-is-desktop-viewer": "true",
        "sec-fetch-site": "cross-site",
        "x-forwarded-port": "443"
      },
       "domainName":"None"
    },
    "info":{
       "channel":{
          "path":"/default/channel",
          "segments":[
             "default",
             "channel"
          ]
       },
       "channelNamespace":{
          "name":"default"
       },
       "operation":"PUBLISH"
    },
    "error":"None",
    "prev":"None",
    "stash":{

    },
    "outErrors":[

    ],
    "events":[
       {
          "payload":{
             "data":"data_1"
          },
          "id":"1"
       },
       {
          "payload":{
             "data":"data_2"
          },
          "id":"2"
       }
    ]
}

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{
    "events":[
       {
          "payload":{
             "data":"data_1"
          },
          "id":"1"
       },
       {
          "payload":{
             "data":"data_2"
          },
          "id":"2"
       }
    ]
}

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{
    "events":[
       {
          "error": "Error message",
          "id":"1"
       },
       {
          "payload":{
             "data":"data_2"
          },
          "id":"2"
       }
    ]
}

Events response with error

When processing events with Lambda, you can return errors to AppSync in three ways:

  • Item specific error: Return an error key within each individual item's response. AppSync Events expects this format for item-specific errors.
  • Fail entire request: Return a JSON object with a top-level error key. This signals a general failure, and AppSync treats the entire request as unsuccessful.
  • Unauthorized exception: Raise the UnauthorizedException exception to reject a subscribe or publish request with HTTP 403.

Resolver

Important

When you return Resolve or ResolveAsync from your handler it will automatically parse the incoming event data and invokes the appropriate handler based on the namespace/channel pattern you register.

You can define your handlers for different event types using the OnPublish(), OnPublishAggregate(), and OnSubscribe() methods and their Async versions OnPublishAsync(), OnPublishAggregateAsync(), and OnSubscribeAsync().

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using AWS.Lambda.Powertools.EventHandler.AppSyncEvents;

public class Function
{
    AppSyncEventsResolver _app;

    public Function()
    {
        _app = new AppSyncEventsResolver();
        _app.OnPublishAsync("/default/channel", async (payload) =>
        {
            // Handle events or
            // return unchanged payload
            return payload;
        });
    }

    public async Task<AppSyncEventsResponse> FunctionHandler(AppSyncEventsRequest input, ILambdaContext context)
    {
        return await _app.ResolveAsync(input, context);
    }
}

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using AWS.Lambda.Powertools.EventHandler.AppSyncEvents;

var app = new AppSyncEventsResolver();

app.OnPublishAsync("/default/channel", async (payload) =>
{
    // Handle events or
    // return unchanged payload
    return payload;
}

async Task<AppSyncEventsResponse> Handler(AppSyncEventsRequest appSyncEvent, ILambdaContext context)
{
    return await app.ResolveAsync(appSyncEvent, context);
}

await LambdaBootstrapBuilder.Create((Func<AppSyncEventsRequest, ILambdaContext, Task<AppSyncEventsResponse>>)Handler,
new DefaultLambdaJsonSerializer())
.Build()
.RunAsync();

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app.OnSubscribe("/default/*", (payload) =>
{
    // Handle subscribe events
    // return true to allow subscription
    // return false or throw to reject subscription
    return true;
});

Advanced

Wildcard patterns and handler precedence

You can use wildcard patterns to create catch-all handlers for multiple channels or namespaces. This is particularly useful for centralizing logic that applies to multiple channels.

When an event matches with multiple handlers, the most specific pattern takes precedence.

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app.OnPublish("/default/channel1", (payload) =>
{
    // This handler will be called for events on /default/channel1
    return payload;
});

app.OnPublish("/default/*", (payload) =>
{
    // This handler will be called for all channels in the default namespace
    // EXCEPT for /default/channel1 which has a more specific handler
    return payload;
});

app.OnPublish("/*", (payload) =>
{
    # This handler will be called for all channels in all namespaces
    # EXCEPT for those that have more specific handlers
    return payload;
});
Supported wildcard patterns

Only the following patterns are supported:

  • /namespace/* - Matches all channels in the specified namespace
  • /* - Matches all channels in all namespaces

Patterns like /namespace/channel* or /namespace/*/subpath are not supported.

More specific routes will always take precedence over less specific ones. For example, /default/channel1 will take precedence over /default/*, which will take precedence over /*.

Aggregated processing

Aggregate Processing

OnPublishAggregate() and OnPublishAggregateAsync(), receives a list of all events, requiring you to manage the response format. Ensure your response includes results for each event in the expected AppSync Request and Response Format.

In some scenarios, you might want to process all events for a channel as a batch rather than individually. This is useful when you need to:

  • Optimize database operations by making a single batch query
  • Ensure all events are processed together or not at all
  • Apply custom error handling logic for the entire batch
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app.OnPublishAggregate("/default/channel", (payload) =>
{
    var evt = new List<AppSyncEvent>();

    foreach (var item in payload.Events)
    {
        if (item.Payload["eventType"].ToString() == "data_2")
        {
            pd.Payload["message"] = "Hello from /default/channel2 with data_2";
            pd.Payload["data"] = new Dictionary<string, object>
            {
                { "key", "value" }
            };
        }

        evt.Add(pd);
    }

    return new AppSyncEventsResponse
    {
        Events = evt
    };
});

Handling errors

You can filter or reject events by raising exceptions in your resolvers or by formatting the payload according to the expected response structure. This instructs AppSync not to propagate that specific message, so subscribers will not receive it.

Handling errors with individual items

When processing items individually with OnPublish() and OnPublishAsync(), you can raise an exception to fail a specific item. When an exception is raised, the Event Handler will catch it and include the exception name and message in the response.

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app.OnPublish("/default/channel", (payload) =>
{
    throw new Exception("My custom exception");
});

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app.OnPublishAsync("/default/channel", async (payload) =>
{
    throw new Exception("My custom exception");
});

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{
    "events":[
       {
          "error": "My custom exception",
          "id":"1"
       },
       {
          "payload":{
             "data":"data_2"
          },
          "id":"2"
       }
    ]
}

Handling errors with batch of items

When processing batch of items with OnPublishAggregate() and OnPublishAggregateAsync(), you must format the payload according the expected response.

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app.OnPublishAggregate("/default/channel", (payload) =>
{
    throw new Exception("My custom exception");
});

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app.OnPublishAggregateAsync("/default/channel", async (payload) =>
{
    throw new Exception("My custom exception");
});

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{
    "error": "My custom exception"
}

Authorization control

Raising UnauthorizedException will cause the Lambda invocation to fail.

You can also reject the entire payload by raising an UnauthorizedException. This prevents Powertools for AWS from processing any messages and causes the Lambda invocation to fail, returning an error to AppSync.

  • When working with publish events Powertools for AWS will stop processing messages and subscribers will not receive any message.
  • When working with subscribe events the subscription won't be established.
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app.OnPublish("/default/channel", (payload) =>
{
    throw new UnauthorizedException("My custom exception");
});

Accessing Lambda context and event

You can access to the original Lambda event or context for additional information. These are accessible via the app instance:

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app.OnPublish("/default/channel", (payload, ctx) =>
{
    payload["functionName"] = ctx.FunctionName;
    return payload;
});

Event Handler workflow

Working with single items

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant AppSync
    participant Lambda
    participant EventHandler
    note over Client,EventHandler: Individual Event Processing (aggregate=False)
    Client->>+AppSync: Send multiple events to channel
    AppSync->>+Lambda: Invoke Lambda with batch of events
    Lambda->>+EventHandler: Process events with aggregate=False
    loop For each event in batch
        EventHandler->>EventHandler: Process individual event
    end
    EventHandler-->>-Lambda: Return array of processed events
    Lambda-->>-AppSync: Return event-by-event responses
    AppSync-->>-Client: Report individual event statuses

Working with aggregated items

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant AppSync
    participant Lambda
    participant EventHandler
    note over Client,EventHandler: Aggregate Processing Workflow
    Client->>+AppSync: Send multiple events to channel
    AppSync->>+Lambda: Invoke Lambda with batch of events
    Lambda->>+EventHandler: Process events with aggregate=True
    EventHandler->>EventHandler: Batch of events
    EventHandler->>EventHandler: Process entire batch at once
    EventHandler->>EventHandler: Format response for each event
    EventHandler-->>-Lambda: Return aggregated results
    Lambda-->>-AppSync: Return success responses
    AppSync-->>-Client: Confirm all events processed

Authorization fails for publish

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant AppSync
    participant Lambda
    participant EventHandler
    note over Client,EventHandler: Publish Event Authorization Flow
    Client->>AppSync: Publish message to channel
    AppSync->>Lambda: Invoke Lambda with publish event
    Lambda->>EventHandler: Process publish event
    alt Authorization Failed
        EventHandler->>EventHandler: Authorization check fails
        EventHandler->>Lambda: Raise UnauthorizedException
        Lambda->>AppSync: Return error response
        AppSync--xClient: Message not delivered
        AppSync--xAppSync: No distribution to subscribers
    else Authorization Passed
        EventHandler->>Lambda: Return successful response
        Lambda->>AppSync: Return processed event
        AppSync->>Client: Acknowledge message
        AppSync->>AppSync: Distribute to subscribers
    end

Authorization fails for subscribe

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant AppSync
    participant Lambda
    participant EventHandler
    note over Client,EventHandler: Subscribe Event Authorization Flow
    Client->>AppSync: Request subscription to channel
    AppSync->>Lambda: Invoke Lambda with subscribe event
    Lambda->>EventHandler: Process subscribe event
    alt Authorization Failed
        EventHandler->>EventHandler: Authorization check fails
        EventHandler->>Lambda: Raise UnauthorizedException
        Lambda->>AppSync: Return error response
        AppSync--xClient: Subscription denied (HTTP 403)
    else Authorization Passed
        EventHandler->>Lambda: Return successful response
        Lambda->>AppSync: Return authorization success
        AppSync->>Client: Subscription established
    end

Testing your code

You can test your event handlers by passing a mocked or actual AppSync Events Lambda event.

Testing publish events

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[Fact]
public void Should_Return_Unchanged_Payload()
{
    // Arrange
    var lambdaContext = new TestLambdaContext();
    var app = new AppSyncEventsResolver();

    app.OnPublish("/default/channel", payload =>
    {
        // Handle channel events
        return payload;
    });

    // Act
    var result = app.Resolve(_appSyncEvent, lambdaContext);

    // Assert
    Assert.Equal("123", result.Events[0].Id);
    Assert.Equal("test data", result.Events[0].Payload?["data"].ToString());
}

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{
    "identity":"None",
    "result":"None",
    "request":{
       "headers": {
        "x-forwarded-for": "1.1.1.1, 2.2.2.2",
        "cloudfront-viewer-country": "US",
        "cloudfront-is-tablet-viewer": "false",
        "via": "2.0 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)",
        "cloudfront-forwarded-proto": "https",
        "origin": "https://us-west-1.console.aws.amazon.com",
        "content-length": "217",
        "accept-language": "en-US,en;q=0.9",
        "host": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.appsync-api.us-west-1.amazonaws.com",
        "x-forwarded-proto": "https",
        "user-agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.83 Safari/537.36",
        "accept": "*/*",
        "cloudfront-is-mobile-viewer": "false",
        "cloudfront-is-smarttv-viewer": "false",
        "accept-encoding": "gzip, deflate, br",
        "referer": "https://us-west-1.console.aws.amazon.com/appsync/home?region=us-west-1",
        "content-type": "application/json",
        "sec-fetch-mode": "cors",
        "x-amz-cf-id": "3aykhqlUwQeANU-HGY7E_guV5EkNeMMtwyOgiA==",
        "x-amzn-trace-id": "Root=1-5f512f51-fac632066c5e848ae714",
        "authorization": "eyJraWQiOiJScWFCSlJqYVJlM0hrSnBTUFpIcVRXazNOW...",
        "sec-fetch-dest": "empty",
        "x-amz-user-agent": "AWS-Console-AppSync/",
        "cloudfront-is-desktop-viewer": "true",
        "sec-fetch-site": "cross-site",
        "x-forwarded-port": "443"
      },
       "domainName":"None"
    },
    "info":{
       "channel":{
          "path":"/default/channel",
          "segments":[
             "default",
             "channel"
          ]
       },
       "channelNamespace":{
          "name":"default"
       },
       "operation":"PUBLISH"
    },
    "error":"None",
    "prev":"None",
    "stash":{

    },
    "outErrors":[

    ],
    "events":[
       {
          "payload":{
            "data": "test data"
          },
          "id":"123"
       }
    ]
}

Testing subscribe events

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[Fact]
public async Task Should_Authorize_Subscription()
{
    // Arrange
    var lambdaContext = new TestLambdaContext();
    var app = new AppSyncEventsResolver();

    app.OnSubscribeAsync("/default/*", async (info) => true);

    var subscribeEvent = new AppSyncEventsRequest
    {
        Info = new Information
        {
            Channel = new Channel
            {
                Path = "/default/channel",
                Segments = ["default", "channel"]
            },
            Operation = AppSyncEventsOperation.Subscribe,
            ChannelNamespace = new ChannelNamespace { Name = "default" }
        }
    };
    // Act
    var result = await app.ResolveAsync(subscribeEvent, lambdaContext);

    // Assert
    Assert.Null(result);
}