Lightning Talks

AWS CDK constructs for deploying a self-hosted Lightning Talks booking application. Teams sign up to give short talks, organizers schedule sessions, and attendees receive magic-link email invitations.

Features

• Passwordless auth — magic-link sign-in via Amazon Cognito and SES
• Multi-org — multiple independent organisations, each with their own series
• Series and sessions — recurring weekly/biweekly/monthly talk series with bookable slots
• Microsoft Teams integration — webhook notifications, bot, Entra ID SSO, Graph calendar sync, live meeting panel
• Reactions and discussions — emoji reactions and threaded comments on talk slots
• File uploads — speakers can attach slides or supporting materials
• Statistics — aggregated usage reports stored as JSON in S3
• Serverless — API Gateway HTTP API + Lambda, CloudFront + S3, DynamoDB, all managed by CDK

Architecture

Route 53 (DnsStack)
    └── ACM Certificate + WAF WebACL (CertificateStack, us-east-1)
    └── CloudFront Distribution  ──── S3 (React frontend)
            └── /auth/*, /series/*, /features  ──── API Gateway HTTP API
                                                        └── Lambda (Node.js 22)
                                                              └── DynamoDB
                                                              └── Cognito
                                                              └── SES
                                                              └── S3 (uploads)

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+
• AWS CLI configured (aws configure)
• AWS CDK CLI: npm install -g aws-cdk
• AWS account bootstrapped: cdk bootstrap

Quick Start

Option A: Install the npm package (recommended)

npm install @yourorg/lightning-talks aws-cdk-lib constructs

Create your deployment config:

// bin/my-app.ts
import { App, RemovalPolicy } from "aws-cdk-lib";
import {
  LightningTalksDataStack,
  DnsStack,
  CertificateStack,
  LightningTalksStack,
  type EnvironmentConfig,
} from "@yourorg/lightning-talks";

const app = new App();

const config: EnvironmentConfig = {
  envName: "prod",
  appUrl: "https://talks.example.com",
  appDomain: "talks.example.com",
  parentZoneId: "Z0123456789",
  parentZoneName: "example.com",
  ses: { managed: true, sesAlertsEmail: "alerts@example.com" },
  allowedEmailDomains: "example.com",
  allowedOrigins: ["https://talks.example.com"],
  removalPolicy: RemovalPolicy.RETAIN,
  features: {
    reactions: true,
    discussions: true,
    statistics: true,
    uploads: { enabled: true, maxFileSizeMB: 50, maxFilesPerSlot: 3 },
    teams: { enabled: false, webhookUrls: [], botEndpoint: false,
             entraFederation: false, graphCalendar: false, meetingPanel: false },
  },
};

const dataStack = new LightningTalksDataStack(app, "Data", { config });
const dnsStack = new DnsStack(app, "Dns", { config });
const certStack = new CertificateStack(app, "Cert", {
  config, hostedZone: dnsStack.hostedZone, env: { region: "us-east-1" },
});
certStack.addDependency(dnsStack);
const appStack = new LightningTalksStack(app, "App", {
  config,
  certificate: certStack.certificate,
  hostedZone: dnsStack.hostedZone,
  webAclArn: certStack.webAclArn,
});
appStack.addDependency(dataStack);
appStack.addDependency(dnsStack);
appStack.addDependency(certStack);

cdk deploy --all

Option B: Clone and deploy directly

git clone https://github.com/yourorg/lightning-talks.git
cd lightning-talks
npm install
cp config/example.ts config/dev.ts
# Edit config/dev.ts with your domain and AWS zone ID
cdk deploy --all --context env=dev

Configuration Reference

Field	Type	Description
envName	string	Environment prefix for resource names (e.g. "dev", "prod")
appUrl	string	Full URL including protocol (e.g. "https://talks.example.com")
appDomain	string	Bare domain (e.g. "talks.example.com")
parentZoneId	string	Route 53 hosted zone ID of the parent zone
parentZoneName	string	Domain name of the parent zone
alertEmail	string?	Email for CloudWatch alarm notifications. Omit to skip alarm creation
ses	ManagedSesConfig | ExternalSesConfig	SES configuration (see below)
allowedOrigins	string[]	CORS allowed origins (must include appUrl)
allowedEmailDomains	string?	Comma-separated allowed email domains. Empty = allow all
removalPolicy	RemovalPolicy	RETAIN for prod, DESTROY for dev
features	FeatureFlags	Feature flags (see below)

SES Configuration

CDK-managed (recommended — CDK creates and verifies the domain identity):

ses: { managed: true, sesAlertsEmail: "alerts@example.com" }

Externally managed (bring your own verified SES identity):

ses: {
  managed: false,
  fromEmail: "noreply@example.com",
  identityDomain: "example.com",
  configSetName: "my-config-set",
}

Feature Flags

Flag	Type	Description
reactions	boolean	Emoji reactions on talk slots
discussions	boolean	Threaded comments on talk slots
statistics	boolean	Usage statistics dashboard
uploads.enabled	boolean	File upload support
uploads.maxFileSizeMB	number	Maximum upload size in MB
uploads.maxFilesPerSlot	number	Maximum files per talk slot
teams.enabled	boolean	Microsoft Teams webhook notifications
teams.botEndpoint	boolean	Teams bot messaging endpoint
teams.entraFederation	boolean	Entra ID (Azure AD) federated SSO
teams.graphCalendar	boolean	Microsoft Graph calendar sync
teams.meetingPanel	boolean	Live meeting panel WebSocket

Local Development

# Frontend dev server
cd frontend && npm install && npm run dev

# Lambda unit tests
cd lambdas && npm install && npm test

# CDK tests
npm test

# CDK synth (validates your config without deploying)
cdk synth --context env=dev

Running Tests

# CDK infrastructure tests
npm test

# Lambda handler tests
cd lambdas && npm test

# Frontend tests
cd frontend && npm test

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Security

To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

License

MIT