Vercel Ship
26
/ AWS Workshop

Connect the Database

Add a database so the app can remember conversations.

Right now the app runs, but it does not have real storage yet. In this step, you add Aurora through Vercel, then ask the agent to save and load messages.

Add the database

  1. Open the Vercel project.

    Go to vercel.com, then open the project you created during vercel dev.

  2. Open Integrations.

    In the project sidebar, click Integrations.

    The Integrations item in the Vercel project sidebar

  3. Choose the AWS integration.

    Click AWS.

    The AWS integration listed on the Vercel Integrations page

  4. Create Aurora PostgreSQL.

    Click Aurora PostgreSQL, then go through the AWS auth steps.

    The Aurora PostgreSQL database option under installed AWS products

  5. Connect the current project.

    When Vercel asks which project to connect, choose your current workshop project from the dropdown.

  6. Pull the environment variables.

    In the Devbox terminal, run this from the repo root:

    vercel env pull

Previous CLI flow

  1. Find the AWS integration.

    Run this in the terminal where vercel dev is running, or in another Devbox terminal from the repo root:

    vercel integration discover aws

  2. Provision Aurora.

    vercel integration add aws/aws-apg

    This opens an auth flow. Follow it to let Vercel create the database for your project.

    When the database is created, note its name. Most people will only have one Aurora database, but writing the name down makes the AWS Console step easier later.

Use the database

  1. Ask the agent to use the database.

    Paste this into your agent:

    Prompt
    Implement real database-backed conversation storage now in the backend FastAPI app. Use the Aurora database from the Vercel integration. Replace any placeholder, mock, in-memory, or static session data with FastAPI routes that save conversations and messages to Aurora, then load previous conversations from Aurora for the frontend when the app starts.

Try it in the app

  1. Open your preview.

    Go back to the browser tab with your Devbox port 3000 preview.

  2. Send a few messages.

    Send two or three chat messages.

  3. Check that they stay saved.

    Refresh the page. Your messages should still be there.

Check the database in AWS

Use this step to see the saved rows directly in AWS.

  1. Open your Vercel project.

    Go to vercel.com, then open the project you created during vercel dev.

  2. Open the Aurora integration.

    In the project sidebar, select Integrations.

    The Integrations item in the Vercel project sidebar

    Select Aurora, then select the database that was created for this workshop.

    The AWS integration listed on the Vercel Integrations pageThe Aurora database listed under installed AWS products

  3. Open AWS Console.

    Click the black button that opens the database in AWS Console.

    The Open in AWS button on the Aurora integration page

  4. Open the database shell.

    In AWS Console, open CloudShell for the database. It will connect to the database for you.

    The Launch CloudShell button in the AWS database console

  5. Run a query.

    Run:

    select * from conversations;

    You should see rows for the conversations you created in the app.

    CloudShell output showing rows from the conversations table

You are ready when

  • Aurora is connected to your Vercel project.
  • Refreshing the preview keeps your messages.
  • The AWS Console query shows rows in conversations.
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