Axis Framework

Philosophy — Axis IS CDK

Axis constructs and stacks extend CDK classes using Omit<CdkProps, "axis-controlled-fields">. They do not wrap CDK. Every CDK prop Axis doesn’t control is available directly, with full IDE autocomplete — when CDK ships a new feature, it is available in your Axis project the same day, with no framework change and no escape hatch required.

Axis takes responsibility for the things that hurt when they go wrong — physical naming, removal policies, cross-stack wiring, and CloudFormation logical-ID safety — and passes everything else through. Read the full model in Axis IS CDK.

The Five Pillars

Every default in the framework must be defensible on all five pillars before it ships. The Five Pillars page shows how each one plays out in real defaults.

Cost

Graviton (arm64) Lambdas by default, SSE-S3 over per-request KMS, pay-per-use primitives, and an opt-in budget stack.

Security

Buckets block public access and enforce TLS, secret values never touch SSM or templates, and registry tokens never land in project files.

Scalability

Serverless primitives, dead-letter queues by default, and stacks that deploy independently over SSM wiring.

Observability

X-Ray tracing on by default, structured logs with retention policies, and an observability stack with alarms, dashboards, and alerting.

Sustainability

arm64 compute, scale-to-zero services, and documentation generated from source so it maintains itself.

Highlights

Typed config in, stacks out

Describe Lambdas, tables, queues, and APIs as typed TypeScript config. The framework turns the registries into CDK stacks — REST, HTTP API v2, or AppSync.

SSM-only cross-stack wiring

No CloudFormation exports, ever. Stacks publish ARNs and IDs to SSM Parameter Store and deploy independently. See Stacks & SSM Wiring.

Logical-ID safety, enforced

Construct IDs are registered and CI-gated, because renaming a logical ID destroys deployed stateful resources. See Logical-ID Permanence.

A CLI that knows your project

axs new scaffolds from validated starters; axs add places code using the axis.json manifest; axs doctor, axs visualize, and axs context keep humans and AI tools oriented.

Compose exactly what you need

The composer builds an app from selections — auth, data, API kind, security, observability — and lets you substitute any stack with your own.

Docs from the tree, not about it

The API reference is generated from the five public package barrels on every build, and code samples come from synth-tested examples. Drift turns the build red.

Next Steps

Install

Node.js 22, pnpm 11, and one-time registry auth. Install →

Create a project

Pick a starter — rest-v1, rest-v2, graphql, worker, or bare. Create →

Deploy end-to-end

Scaffold, synth, bootstrap, deploy, and call your first endpoint. Tutorial →

Learn the mental model

Project structure, the manifest, wiring, toggles, and the composer. Concepts →