Invoke AWS Lambda and return response to API Gateway asyncronously

Question

My use case is such that I\'ll have an AWS Lambda front ended with API Gateway.

My requirement is that once the Lambda is invoked it should return a 200 OK response

Answer 1

Yes, simply create two Lambda functions. The first Lambda function will be called by the API Gateway and will simply invoke the second Lambda function and then immediately return successfully so that the API Gateway can respond with an HTTP 200 to the client. The second Lambda function will then take as long as long as it needs to complete.

Answer 2

If anyone is interested, here is the code you can use to do the two lambdas approach. The code below is the first lambda that you should setup which would then call the second, longer running, lambda. It takes well under a second to execute.

const Lambda = new (require('aws-sdk')).Lambda();

/**
 * Note: Step Functions, which are called out in many answers online, do NOT actually work in this case.  The reason
 * being that if you use Sequential or even Parallel steps they both require everything to complete before a response
 * is sent.  That means that this one will execute quickly but Step Functions will still wait on the other one to
 * complete, thus defeating the purpose.
 *
 * @param {Object} event The Event from Lambda
 */
exports.handler = async (event) => {
    let params = {
      FunctionName: "<YOUR FUNCTION NAME OR ARN>",
      InvocationType: "Event",  // <--- This is KEY as it tells Lambda to start execution but immediately return / not wait.
      Payload: JSON.stringify( event )
    };

    // we have to wait for it to at least be submitted. Otherwise Lambda runs too fast and will return before
    // the Lambda can be submitted to the backend queue for execution
    await new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        Lambda.invoke(params, function(err, data) {
            if (err) {
                reject(err, err.stack);
            }
            else {
                resolve('Lambda invoked: '+data) ;
            }
        });
    });

    // Always return 200 not matter what
    return {
        statusCode : 200,
        body: "Event Handled"
    };

};

Answer 3

With API Gateway's "Lambda Function" integration type, you can't do this with a single Lambda function -- that interface is specifically designed to be synchronous. The workaround, if you want to use the Lambda Function integration type is for the synchronous Lambda function, invoked by the gateway, to invoke a second, asynchronous, Lambda function through the Lambda API.

However, asynchronous invocations are possible without the workaround, using an AWS Service Proxy integration instead of a Lambda Function integration.

If your API makes only synchronous calls to Lambda functions in the back end, you should use the Lambda Function integration type. [...]

If your API makes asynchronous calls to Lambda functions, you must use the AWS Service Proxy integration type described in this section. The instructions apply to requests for synchronous Lambda function invocations as well. For the asynchronous invocation, you must explicitly add the X-Amz-Invocation-Type:Event header to the integration request.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/integrating-api-with-aws-services-lambda.html

Answer 4

Check the answer here on how to set up an Async Invoke to the Lambda function. This will return 200 immediately to the client, but the Lambda will process on it's own asynchronously.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/40982649/5679071