What if debugging Lambda functions felt effortless?

You’re writing application logic, but half of the time is spent navigating AWS: deploying code, triggering test events, flipping between tabs, and digging through CloudWatch logs to see if that one-line change worked. It seems clunky and disconnected —and it’s nothing like how we write and debug regular application code.

Here’s how a typical development loop looks:

This approach is both time-consuming and distracting. Debugging a simple KeyError often means wading through log streams and deployment delays. Each deployment adds overhead, and that overhead slows down the feedback loop. And if the function talks to other AWS resources like DynamoDB or S3? The complexity multiplies.

Wouldn’t it be better if there were a way to debug AWS Lambda functions as if they were running locally, right inside an IDE, with breakpoints, test events, and direct feedback, just like any other code, even when they’re deployed in the cloud?

That’s exactly what the new AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio (VS) Code now makes possible.