Building a World Cup Bracket Picker with AWS Blocks

AWS just launched . The mock branch has the frontend-only starting point with prompts if you want to build along.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or higher


• An IDE (, matches them against our fixtures, writes scores to the database, and recomputes standings. Locally, the job runs synchronously in-process when triggered. On AWS, it becomes an EventBridge Scheduler + Lambda.
  
  
  

  
  
  
  Running the app
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  CODE Kopieren

  npm run dev
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Open http://localhost:3000. Sign up with a username and password. On first login, ensureSeeded() populates the database with all 48 teams, their 26-player rosters, and 88 group-stage matches. Start picking your bracket.

  
  
  

  Mock data persists in .bb-data/ across dev server restarts. To reset everything: rm -rf .bb-data.

  
  
  

  
  
  
  Deploying to AWS
  

  
  
  

  When you're ready to go live:
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  CODE Kopieren

  npm run sandbox          # Ephemeral backend on AWS (2-3 minutes)
  
  npm run deploy           # Production with S3 + CloudFront hosting
  
  npm run sandbox:destroy  # Tear down when done
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  No AWS experience required. The same code you tested locally runs on DynamoDB, Lambda, API Gateway, AppSync, and CloudFront without changes.

  
  
  

  
  
  
  Conclusion
  

  
  
  

  We built a full-stack World Cup bracket picker with authentication, structured data, realtime updates, an AI agent, and scheduled background jobs. Every block ran locally with zero AWS credentials. The source code is on