Day 5 of AWS Builder Challenge #2,"Professional Deployment-GitHub, Amplify, and Modern Web Development"
Update to Success
If you read my previous post, you’ll know I was dealing with the challenge of converting my Next.js project into static files and manually uploading them to S3 + CloudFront. Today’s article introduced Amazon Amplify, which removes all of that hassle.
No more conversion scripts or manual uploads. Amplify connects directly to GitHub, builds the app, and deploys it automatically with every change. I even wrote a small deploy.md file earlier to handle my manual workflow-but with Amplify, it’s no longer needed.
Okay now Back to Day 5.
Day 5
This article really hit home because it solved the exact problem I ran into yesterday. I appreciated that it explained the basics clearly, including what Git and GitHub is, why they matter, and how to set up a repository. Even if you were completely new, you could follow along step by step.
The big aha! moment was Amplify. Setting it up was straightforward: I tried deploying my static website, and it worked out of the box. To take it further, I customized error handling by adding a redirect rule for my custom 404 page:
- Under Hosting → Rewrites and Redirects, click "Manage Redirects"
- Change
"target": "/index.html"to"target": "/404.html" - Click Save Changes
Now my custom error page loads properly with no redirect issues.
Looking back, I've realized how much I've grown as a developer since starting this journey. I'm glad I first went through the S3 + CloudFront manual setup. If I had gone straight to Amplify, I wouldn’t have learned about buckets, deployment scripts, or their limitations. That context makes me appreciate Amplify even more.
For now, I won’t be deleting my manual setup, it feels wrong to remove it after everything we've been through. It deserves to stay.
Bonus : In my next blog, I’ll explain how you can get a free domain (if you’re a student) using the GitHub Student Developer Pack to customize your site even further.
Checklist
- [x] Created GitHub account and repository
- [x] Uploaded website files to GitHub
- [x] Deployed website using Amplify + GitHub integration
- [x] Tested automatic deployment with a code change
- [ ] Cleaned up original CloudFront distribution (intentionally skipped)
Thanks for reading!