Get SQS URL from within Serverless function? - amazon-sqs

Question

I'm building a Serverless app that defines an SQS queue in the resources as follows:
resources:
Resources:
TheQueue:
Type: "AWS:SQS:Queue"
Properties:
QueueName: "TheQueue"
I want to send messages to this queue from within one of the functions. How can I access the URL from within the function? I want to place it here:
const params = {
MessageBody: 'message body here',
QueueUrl: 'WHATS_THE_URL_HERE',
DelaySeconds: 5
};

Answer 1

This is a great question!
I like to set the queue URL as an ENV var for my app!
So you've named the queue TheQueue.
Simply add this snippet to your serverless.yml file:
provider:
name: aws
runtime: <YOUR RUNTIME>
environment:
THE_QUEUE_URL: { Ref: TheQueue }
Serverless will automatically grab the queue URL from your CloudFormation and inject it into your ENV.
Then you can access the param as:
const params = {
MessageBody: 'message body here',
QueueUrl: process.env.THE_QUEUE_URL,
DelaySeconds: 5
};

Answer 2

You can use the Get Queue URL API, though I tend to also pass it in to my function. The QueueUrl is the Ref value for an SQS queue in CloudFormation, so you can pretty easily get to it in your CloudFormation. This handy cheat sheet is really helpful for working with CloudFormation attributes and refs.

Answer 3

I go a bit of a different route. I, personally, don't like storing information in environment variables when using lambda, though I really like Aaron Stuyvenberg solution. Therefore, I store information like this is AWS SSM Parameter store.
Then in my code I just call for it when needed. Forgive my JS it has been a while since I did it. I mostly do python
var ssm = new AWS.SSM();
const myHandler = (event, context) => {
var { Value } = await ssm.getParameter({Name: 'some.name.of.parameter'}).promise()
const params = {
MessageBody: 'message body here',
QueueUrl: Value,
DelaySeconds: 5
};
}
There is probably some deconstruction of the returned data structure I got wrong, but this is roughly what I do. In python I wrote a library that does all of this with one line.