How to install the AWS CDK on macOS

This post lists the steps needed to install the latest version of AWS CDK on macOS.

Apple Command Line Tools

xcode-select --install

Nvm

nvm is node.js version manager.

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.4/install.sh | bash

Close and reopen terminal.

Node.js

Install via nvm:

nvm install v20.16.0

Make sure you do not have default node set:

nvm unalias default

Activate node 20.16.0:

nvm use 20.16.0

Configure npm

Configure npm (Node Package Manager) to save versions of packages in packages.json. This way you can have the same stable environment on all development machines:

npm config set save=true
npm config set save-exact=true

AWS CDK

Install the AWS CDK globally (so that you can bootstrap a new CDK project in your language choice) in any folder:

nvm use 20.16.0

npm uninstall --global aws-cdk
npm install --global aws-cdk@2.111

Test:

cdk --version