Building My First Serverless Task Tracker on AWS
built a personal task tracker with AWS Amplify, Amazon Cognito, API Gateway, Lambda, and DynamoDB. Along the way, I learned how the services work together, secured task data with sign-in, and worked through issues with API routes, CORS, and loading saved tasks. Feel free to try it out: https://main.dwyb2nchmj0b9.amplifyapp.com/
I just finished building a Personal Task Tracker with AWS—and I learned a lot more than “how to make a task list.”
The app is a simple HTML/CSS/JavaScript frontend hosted on Amplify. Cognito handles sign-in. API Gateway checks the Cognito token, Lambda handles the task actions, and DynamoDB stores the tasks for each signed-in user.
The funniest part? The page could look completely fine while the request behind it was going to the wrong route. I saw “Failed to fetch,” chased CORS, found a 404, and then had to trace which Lambda integration was actually answering. Cloud debugging: sometimes the button is innocent.
What helped me get unstuck was checking one connection at a time:
- Does the browser send the right method and path?
- Does API Gateway have that exact route?
- Is the route connected to the correct Lambda?
- Is Cognito authorizing it?
- Is Lambda querying DynamoDB with the signed-in user’s ID?
Now I can add, view, complete, and delete tasks, and the tasks persist for the same account after signing out and back in.
A few things I’m taking into my next project: use the browser Network panel, don’t grant broad permissions just to make an error disappear, keep AWS credentials out of frontend code, and check costs as you build. You don’t need AI in every project to make something useful—or to learn modern cloud development.
If you’re a student builder, start small, connect one service at a time, and keep going when the first “it should work” turns into a debugging session. That’s where a lot of the learning happens.
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