AWS Setup

AWS Setup for Chukfi CMS

Every Chukfi developer gets their own AWS RDS PostgreSQL instance for local development. This guide walks you through the one-time setup.

Step 1: Install the AWS CLI

# macOS
brew install awscli

# Linux
curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
unzip awscliv2.zip
sudo ./aws/install

# Windows
msiexec.exe /i https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.msi

Step 2: Create an IAM user (if you don’t have one)

1. Go to the AWS IAM Console
2. Create a new user with Programmatic access
3. Attach this policy — the minimum permissions chukfi db needs:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "rds:CreateDBInstance",
        "rds:DeleteDBInstance",
        "rds:DescribeDBInstances",
        "rds:ListTagsForResource"
      ],
      "Resource": "*"
    }
  ]
}

4. Copy the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

Step 3: Run aws configure

aws configure

You’ll be prompted for:

• AWS Access Key ID: paste from step 2
• AWS Secret Access Key: paste from step 2
• Default region name: us-east-1 (or your preferred region)
• Default output format: json (or leave blank)

This creates ~/.aws/credentials and ~/.aws/config — chukfi reads these automatically.

Step 4: Create your database

chukfi db create --name my-chukfi-dev --region us-east-1

This creates a db.t4g.micro PostgreSQL 16 instance tagged Project=chukfi-dev. Takes ~10 minutes. When it finishes, you’ll get a DATABASE_URL to paste into your .env file.

Security

chukfi db create makes your instance publicly accessible, secured by an auto-generated 32-character random password. When you’re done working, destroy it:

chukfi db destroy --id my-chukfi-dev --yes

IP-locking via security groups ships in a future release — track progress on the Roadmap.

Cost

Each db.t4g.micro RDS instance costs approximately $15/month while running. Tear down when not in use to avoid charges. For production deployments, see Deployment.