Announcing Serverless Framework v3 Beta

Since the release of AWS Lambda, and later Serverless Framework, serverless technologies have radically simplified application development and operations. 6 years later, Serverless Framework is used by 90% of organizations that have gone serverless.

Today, we are very excited to announce the availability of Serverless Framework v3 beta! The 3.0 release, planned for Q1 2022, includes a cleaner and redesigned CLI experience that prioritizes actionable information.

The v3 beta lets you experience the new CLI design right now and helps prepare for the upgrade.

You can install v3 beta globally via NPM:

$ npm -g i serverless@pre-3
...

# Check the version
$ serverless --version
Framework Core: 3.0.0-pre.xxxx

Or install in a specific project only:‍

$ npm i serverless@pre-3

# Run serverless using npx to avoid conflicts with the global v2 CLI
$ npx serverless --version
Framework Core: 3.0.0-pre.xxxx

Raising the bar on developer experience

Over the years, Serverless Framework has become the most advanced tool to create and deploy serverless applications.

This comes with a challenge: maintaining a clean and simple experience for users. As deprecations, plugins, and cloud resources multiply, so does the noisiness of the CLI.

Serverless Framework v3 is the framework you know and love, with a reimagined interface. We started from scratch and asked ourselves: "as a user, what do I need to know?" at each step of each command. The new design:

focuses on actionable information
removes all extra noise
is easier on the eyes with minimalistic colors and styles

Below is a preview of the new design with the most common commands.

Deploy

The "serverless deploy" command now features a clean and minimal output. Here is a comparison of v2 (left) and v3 (right):

Verbose output

Serverless Framework v3 now supports the standard "--verbose" flag to output more details.

That option can be particularly useful in CI/CD, for example to get a detailed history of the CloudFormation deployment:

Clear errors

The error screen has been improved: any failure is now clearly signaled, secondary information is toned down and the error message is printed last, to appear right above the command prompt.

On top of that, CloudFormation errors now contain more details about resources and their statuses:

Cleaner logs

The "serverless logs" command now features a cleaner and lighter output that brings more focus on the content of the logs.

New Serverless onboarding

Serverless Framework can now interactively set up new projects: just run "serverless" in an empty directory and follow the prompt.

The interactive setup also lets you set up the Serverless Dashboard in a few steps. Run serverless in an existing project and get access to premium monitoring, AWS account management, parameters, and more.

And for those of you that followed the announcement of Serverless Console last week: yes, Serverless Framework will natively integrate with Serverless Console as soon as it is available!

Join the discussion

If you have any feedback, we would love to hear it. Join the GitHub discussion and let us know what you like or how we can improve it!

Easy to upgrade

With several hundred contributors and versions, Serverless Framework v2 has accumulated improvements, but also deprecations, at a great pace.

While preparing for v3, we have revisited the list of breaking changes to make the upgrade to v3 easier.

We invite all users to upgrade to the latest v2 version: you may notice that some deprecations are gone. Most notably:

package.exclude/package.include syntax will continue to work in v3
provider.iamRoleStatements (and related options) will continue to work in v3
the legacy Lambda version hashing mechanisms will continue to be supported in v3
and more (read the complete list)

You can read more about all these features we've decided to continue supporting in v3 in the "Upgrading guide".

If the list above doesn't mean anything to you, that's OK. Here is all that you need to know:

Upgrade to the latest v2 version
If you see deprecations, take the time to fix them
If you don't see deprecations, your project will work with v3 🎉

If you are curious, you can also read the complete "Upgrading to v3" guide.

We estimate that around 70% of serverless projects should be able to upgrade to v3 without breaking change. If you need help upgrading, feel free to open a discussion on GitHub.

Calling all plugin developers

Serverless Framework wouldn't be the same without its incredible plugin ecosystem. As you may expect, the new CLI design can also benefit plugins!

This is a call to all plugin developers: we want to help you build amazing plugins. As such, v3 comes with:

New documentation for "Creating plugins", which is complete and up-to-date.
Brand new plugin API for writing awesome CLI output.

The new plugin API lets plugins integrate with the new design via helpers:

Log with sensible log levels and formatting (including --verbose and --debug)
Create interactive progress
Add new sections to serverless info output
And more

You can read the documentation about these new Plugin APIs.

We have also started a community discussion with all plugin authors: join the GitHub discussion and let us know if you have feedback, questions or if you need help.

Architectural Guidance & Commercial Support

While Serverless Framework makes it easy to create radically efficient cloud apps, nothing beats the confidence you’ll gain from working with the team that built the Serverless Framework.

Talk to our experts and members of the product team to get architectural guidance as you’re designing and building your app, and get ongoing support as you go into production via email or Slack. Learn more about serverless Enterprise Support