Chapter 1: Creating Your AWS Account and Preparing Your Local Environment (Part 1)

Hey, I'm Abderrahim Boutorh 👋 — a Senior Platform Engineer with a passion for tackling complex problems and creating impactful solutions. I'm AWS certified with more than 8 years experience building scalable solutions on the cloud. I'm always open to a chat, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn or email me at contact@abderrahimboutorh.com.

Enjoy reading and I hope you find this content valuable!

Welcome to Chapter 1 of this project series! In this chapter, I’ll guide you through preparing your AWS account, installing the necessary software on your computer, and setting up your local environment for a seamless development experience. If you’re a developer with your own setup ready, it’s always a good idea to skim through articles for fresh ideas!

If this is your first time hearing about this project, be sure to read The Introduction for an overview of what it entails.

Without wasting any more time, let’s dive right in!

Note: The following steps are performed on macOS. If you're using a different operating system, such as Windows or Ubuntu, the steps are the same. If you still face issues by the end of this tutorial, leave me a comment below or drop me a message and I'll assist you in fixing that.

Creating your AWS Cloud account

If you already have an AWS account, skip to the next section. If not, creating one is as simple as opening a TikTok account. Just head over to the AWS account creation page and follow these steps:

• Step 1: Enter your account information. The root email address serves as the super admin of your AWS account, so keep the password safe—we’ll discuss this account in more detail later.
• Step 2: Add your contact information. Choose Personal Account when prompted; both personal and business accounts have exactly the same features.
• Step 3: Add a payment method. Don’t worry about costs for now—you’ll have access to Free Tiers for most AWS products during your first 12 months.
• Step 4: Verify your phone number.
• Step 5: Select a support plan. You can skip this step for now; just choose the free support plan.
• Step 6: Complete the sign-up process. Account creation usually takes just a few minutes.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you should be able to log in to the AWS console and see the following screen:

Congratulations! You now officially have an account on AWS Cloud. If you’d like to learn more about the account creation process, check out the official AWS guide on creating an account.

Install an IDE on your computer: Cursor AI – Welcome to AI-assisted programming!

An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a software tool that helps programmers write, test, and fix their code in one place. It combines several key features:

1. Code Editor: A place to write code with helpful tools like syntax highlighting and auto-completion.
2. Compiler/Interpreter: Translates your code into something the computer can understand and run.
3. Debugger: Helps find and fix errors by letting you inspect your code in detail.
4. Build Automation: Automates tasks like compiling and deploying your program.
5. Version Control: Integrates with tools like Git to track changes and collaborate.
6. Project Management: Organises files and code to keep large projects easy to manage.

In short, an IDE makes coding easier and more efficient by bringing everything you need into one tool.

There are many IDEs to choose from, and some of the most popular ones are Visual Studio Code (VS Code), PyCharm, Xcode, Android Studio, Eclipse, Atom, and more. I've worked with all of them! And let me tell you something: they are all quite similar, with only a few minor differences.

However, here’s the fun part: who isn't using AI while coding these days? Meet Cursor AI.

Cursor AI is an AI-powered coding assistant designed to help developers write and improve code more efficiently. It offers features like code suggestions, error detection, and auto-completion, making the coding process faster and more accurate. It’s like having an intelligent pair of eyes helping you write better code in real-time.

Simply, visit Cursor AI website and download their desktop application on your computer and install it. Once installed, open it and you should see an empty screen like the following:

Note: Don’t worry about the chat screen on the left and the terminal window at the bottom for now. I’ll explain how to use these later.

If you've made it this far, you're officially a developer!

The world of Command-Line Interfaces (CLIs)

A Command-Line Interface (CLI) is a text-based interface that allows you to interact with your computer or software by typing commands. Unlike graphical interfaces with buttons and menus, a CLI lets you execute tasks directly by entering text instructions, making it a powerful tool for developers like you and system administrators to perform complex tasks efficiently.

In this project, we will use various CLIs from different tools to interact with the systems we’ll be working with. But before that, we need to install them on our computer first.

AWS CLI

The AWS CLI (Command Line Interface) is a tool that allows you to interact with Amazon Web Services directly from your terminal. It enables you to manage and automate AWS services by running simple text commands, making tasks like resource management, deployments, and configurations faster and more efficient.

In order to install the AWS CLI follow these steps:

macOS/ Ubuntu users

1. Open your terminal: it’s an application pre-installed on your computer that allows you to write commands to interact with your system.
2. Run the following command to download the AWS CLI installer:

curl "<https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg>" -o "AWSCLIV2.pkg"        

3. Run the following command to execute the installer:

sudo installer -pkg ./AWSCLIV2.pkg -target /        

4. Verify that your terminal can find and run the AWS command in your $PATH, use the following commands.

which aws
aws --version        

if you see something like this it means you’ve successfully installed the CLI:

aws-cli/2.22.4 Python/3.12.6 Darwin/22.6.0 exe/x86_64        

Windows users

1. Download and run the AWS CLI MSI installer for Windows (64-bit) here.
2. To confirm the installation, open the Start menu, search for cmd to open a command prompt window, and at the command prompt use the aws --version command.

aws --version        

If you see something like this it means you’ve successfully installed the CLI:

aws-cli/2.22.4 Python/3.12.6 Darwin/22.6.0 exe/x86_64        

If Windows is unable to find the program, you might need to close and reopen the command prompt window to refresh the path

Note: For more details about the AWS CLI installation process, visit the official AWS CLI installation page.

Terraform CLI

Imagine you’re building with LEGO, but instead of putting the blocks together by hand, you write a list saying, “I want a red house with two windows and a door.” Terraform reads your list and builds it for you, just like magic. It helps people tell computers how to set up things in the cloud.

Terraform is an open-source infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tool that lets you define, provision, and manage cloud infrastructure using simple, human-readable configuration files. It supports multiple cloud providers, enabling consistent and automated infrastructure deployment.

The Terraform CLI is like the magic wand you wave to make the LEGO instructions come to life. You type in commands, and it makes the house appear exactly how you described it. It’s how you talk to Terraform to get things done!

To install the Terraform CLI, follow these steps:

macOS using Homebrew

1. Install the HashiCorp tap, a repository of all our Homebrew packages by running the following command

brew tap hashicorp/tap        

2. install Terraform with hashicorp/tap/terraform by running:

brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform        

3. To update to the latest version of Terraform, first update Homebrew.

brew update        

4. Run the upgrade command to download and use the latest Terraform version.

brew upgrade hashicorp/tap/terraform        

5. Verify the installation

terraform -help        

If everything was installed correctly, you should see something similar to the following:

Usage: terraform [-version] [-help] <command> [args]

The available commands for execution are listed below.
The most common, useful commands are shown first, followed by
less common or more advanced commands. If you're just getting
started with Terraform, stick with the common commands. For the
other commands, please read the help and docs before usage.
##...        

Windows

1. Download the appropriate Terraform package for you Windows machine here.
2. After downloading Terraform, unzip the package. Terraform runs as a single binary named terraform.exe. Any other files in the package can be safely removed and Terraform will still function.
3. Extract the .exe from the unzipped package and move it to a folder eg C:\Apps\Terraform .
4. Add the folder location C:\Apps\Terraform to your PATH variable, eg: open Control Panel -> System -> System settings -> Environment Variables.
5. In System Variables, select Path > edit > new > Enter the location of the Terraform .exe, eg C:\Apps\Terraform then click OK.

6. Open a new CMD/PowerShell and verify Terraform command is working by running

terraform -help        

If the installation was successful, you should see something similar to the following:

Usage: terraform [-version] [-help] <command> [args]

The available commands for execution are listed below.
The most common, useful commands are shown first, followed by
less common or more advanced commands. If you're just getting
started with Terraform, stick with the common commands. For the
other commands, please read the help and docs before usage.
##...        

For further information about the Terraform installation process check the following resources:

• Install Terraform CLI.
• Set environment variable path in Windows.

Wrap up

That’s it for today’s Part 1 of Chapter 1. I’m intentionally keeping these articles short to avoid overwhelming you and to give you time to digest the information. We’ll continue with the rest of the CLI and tool installations in Part 2. I hope you managed to install all the software we discussed above on your computer. If not, take your time and ensure you follow the instructions step by step.

Always remember: software engineers spend a lot of their time debugging and figuring out why things aren’t working — and you’re no exception at this stage. It’s completely normal to encounter things that don’t make sense yet. I promise it will all start to click as you become more familiar with these concepts.

More resources

If you are interested and have a spare few minutes, here are a few resources that you can read and watch to get more familiar with the tools we discussed in this article:

• Create an AWS account

• Explore Cursor AI

Thank you for reading, and always stay curious and eager to learn!

Abderrahim

Want to share your thoughts, suggestions, or requests? Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or email me at contact@abderrahimboutorh.com.