CreativeCook — Automated AWS Deployment with Terraform & CI/CD

A community-driven recipe platform needed a reliable, secure, and repeatable infrastructure setup on AWS where application deployments could be automated without manual server configuration. The goal was to avoid configuration drift, enable fast deployments, and ensure the platform remained secure and production-ready.

Objective

To design an automated AWS infrastructure and CI/CD pipeline that could provision resources, configure servers, deploy containerized applications, and secure the platform with SSL — all with minimal manual intervention.

Architecture Overview

The infrastructure was provisioned using Terraform on AWS. The application was containerized with Docker, stored in ECR, and deployed on EC2 instances. GitHub Actions handled the CI/CD pipeline to build, push, and deploy images automatically. NGINX was configured as a reverse proxy with SSL using Let’s Encrypt.

Tools & Technologies Used

Terraform, AWS EC2, ECR, GitHub Actions, Docker, NGINX, Let’s Encrypt, Instance Profiles

Implementation Steps

Provisioned AWS infrastructure using Terraform for repeatable environment setup.
Used EC2 User Data scripts to automatically install Docker, AWS CLI, and required dependencies.
Built Docker images and pushed them to ECR via GitHub Actions.
Configured GitHub Actions pipeline to deploy containers on EC2 automatically.
Attached IAM Instance Profiles to EC2 for secure AWS access.
Configured NGINX reverse proxy.
Enabled SSL with Let’s Encrypt

Challenges Faced

Automating EC2 configuration without manual SSH access.
Securely allowing EC2 to pull images from ECR without hardcoded credentials.
Setting up SSL on a dynamic deployment environment

Troubleshooting & Solutions

User Data scripts were carefully crafted and tested to ensure EC2 instances were fully configured on launch. IAM Instance Profiles were used instead of static credentials to allow secure ECR access. NGINX and Certbot configuration required debugging to correctly route traffic and renew certificates automatically.

Outcome

Fully automated infrastructure provisioning.
Zero manual deployment steps.
Secure, SSL-enabled production environment.
Consistent and repeatable deployments using Terraform and CI/CD

Key Learnings

Creative Cook project strengthened practical skills in Infrastructure as Code, AWS security practices, automated deployments, and production troubleshooting.