How to include a subdirectory of libraries in an AWS Lambda function

Question

I'm writing a Lambda function (in Python3 for this example) that requires two non-standard libraries. Those libraries in turn require ~30 additional libraries. To add those two directories locally to push to AWS Lambda I run the command pip3 install <library> -t./ .

Unfortunately now, I have all of these libraries and my lambda_handler.py all in the same directory. Now this technically works, but doesn't look good and is difficult for source control/readability/editing. I tried putting the libraries into a single directory, but then my python script is unable to find them.

Ideally, I'd like my entire Lambda project to look like this

function.zip

lambda_handler.py
config.py
libraries/

What would I need to do to my code/directory to have this sort of nice, clean structure?

Thank you!

Answer 1

One way to ensure cleaner and nice structure of your deployment package, would be to use lambda layers for the dependencies:

With layers, you can use libraries in your function without needing to include them in your deployment package .

This also allows you to reuse the same dependencies across multiple lambda functions, which is beneficial for source control, readability and maintainability of your lambda functions.