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🚀 Deploy Your First Cloud Function

Want to see Cloudhopper in action? This guide walks you through generating, deploying, and testing a serverless function on your favorite cloud.

📋 Prerequisites​

You’ll need:

For the springboot-http target, which runs your functions as a local Spring Boot application, you need neither Terraform nor a cloud account.

Step 0: Build Cloudhopper from Source​

Pre-release

Version 1.0 is not on Maven Central yet. Until it is, install Cloudhopper into your local Maven repository first, so that the archetype and the libraries can be resolved:

git clone https://github.com/dukehoff-gmbh/dukehoff-cloudhopper.git
cd dukehoff-cloudhopper
mvn clean install -DskipTests
cd ..

This installs version 1.0-SNAPSHOT, which the commands below refer to.

Step 1: Generate a Project​

mvn archetype:generate \
  -DarchetypeGroupId=eu.cloudhopper.mc \
  -DarchetypeArtifactId=cloudhopper-maven-archetype-core \
  -DarchetypeVersion=1.0-SNAPSHOT \
  -DgroupId=com.example \
  -DartifactId=my-function \
  -Dversion=1.0-SNAPSHOT \
  -Dpackage=com.example.fn \
  -DgeneratorIds=aws-terraform,gcp-terraform,azure-terraform,springboot-http \
  -DincludeTerraformProfile=true \
  -B

generatorIds lists the targets the project is prepared for: aws-terraform, gcp-terraform, azure-terraform and springboot-http. Keep only the ones you need.

Step 2: Look at Your Function​

The generated project already contains a ready-to-deploy function in src/main/java/.../HelloFunction.java:

public class HelloFunction {

    @Function(name = "hello")
    @HttpTrigger(method = "GET", path = "/hello/{name}",
                 summary = "Say Hello", description = "Returns a friendly greeting")
    public String handleRequest(@PathParam String name) {
        return "hello " + name;
    }
}

That is the whole programming model: a plain method, a @Function name, and a trigger. Cloudhopper generates the cloud-specific handler and infrastructure from these annotations. To add your own functions — request bodies, query parameters, scheduled triggers — see the Writing Functions guide.

Step 3: Configure Terraform deployment (for deploy-with-terraform profile)​

The generated project contains terraform files that allow you to set variables required for deployment and add additional variables and resources. You will need to configure these only if you're planning to use the terraform deployment profile.

If you want to copy the generated resources to your own deployment pipeline, you can skip this step.

Edit the provider configuration in the generated Terraform, for example:

src/main/resources/deployment/aws-terraform/main.tf

You need to provide your region and adjust authentication details or the Terraform backend configuration:

AWS​

provider "aws" {
  region = "us-east-1"
}

Azure​

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

GCP​

provider "google" {
  project = "your-project-id"
  region  = "us-central1"
}

For more advanced setups (IAM roles, VPC config), see Terraform AWS Provider Docs.

Step 4: Build and Generate Deployment Artifacts​

cd my-function
mvn clean install -Paws-terraform

This compiles your function, processes annotations, and generates Terraform files in:

target/deployment/aws-terraform/

You can now copy the generated files along with the generated artefact and deploy the resources as part of your existing pipeline. If you would like to use the deploy-with-terraform profile, proceed with the next step.

Step 5: Deploy the Function with deploy-with-terraform profile​

For the three cloud provider profiles you need to configure the terraform executable.

Make sure your pom.xml includes the path to Terraform:

<properties>
  <terraform.executable>terraform</terraform.executable>
  <path.extras></path.extras>
</properties>

Use the built-in Maven profile to apply the Terraform plan:

mvn verify -Pdeploy-with-terraform -Dterraform.command=apply

Terraform will create the function and related infrastructure.

🔍 Step 6: Test Your Function​

Find the deployed URL in Terraform output or your cloud console, then test it:

curl https://your-function-url/hello/world

Expected response:

"hello world"

🧭 What’s Next?​