AWS SAA Study

Personal study reference for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) exam. Built as a Next.js app, deployed to Cloudflare Pages with Cloudflare D1 as the database.

Table of Contents

• What's inside
• Stack
• Local dev
• Deploy
• Database (Cloudflare D1)
• Data files
• Content scope
• MCP Servers
• GitHub Actions

What's inside

Route	What
/	Quick cheatsheet — service name, mnemonic, keywords across all 4 domains
/learn	Deep Notes — full explanations, exam scenarios, tips (Malay + English)
/visual	Interactive architecture diagrams (React Flow)
/vpc	VPC deep dive — CIDR, subnets, NAT, routing
/practice	Practice questions (fetched from D1, fallback to local data)

Stack

• Next.js 16 (App Router, edge runtime via @cloudflare/next-on-pages)
• Tailwind CSS v4
• React Flow (@xyflow/react) for interactive architecture diagrams
• Bun as package manager
• Cloudflare Pages for hosting
• Cloudflare D1 (SQLite at edge) for questions and glossary

Local dev

bun install
bun dev

Deploy

Push to main — Cloudflare Pages builds and deploys automatically using wrangler.jsonc config.

Cloudflare Dashboard setup → Workers & Pages → aws-saa-study → Settings → Builds & deployments:

Setting	Value
Production branch	main
Build command	bun run pages:build
Build output directory	.vercel/output/static

AI secrets (required for /ai)

Free AI needs server-side keys as Cloudflare Secrets (not Plaintext vars — wrangler.jsonc manages vars). Add on Preview + Production:

Secret	Minimum
ILMU_API_KEY	At least one of ILMU / NVIDIA / GEMINI
GEMINI_API_KEY	Recommended (fallback)
NVIDIA_API_KEY	Optional fallback

Dashboard → Add → Secret. Copy values from .dev.vars. Full checklist: docs/deploy-cloudflare.md.

Manual deploy from your machine:

bunx wrangler login   # once
bun run deploy

Live: aws.amrhnshh.com (also aws-saa-study.pages.dev)

Database (Cloudflare D1)

D1 database: aws-saa-questions (region: APAC/HKG)

Table	Rows	Content
questions	122	MCQ practice questions (60 custom + 62 Core SAA-C03)
glossary	133	AWS terms with definitions and categories

Seed scripts live in scripts/ — run locally to repopulate D1:

# Questions
bun run scripts/seed-d1.ts
bunx wrangler d1 execute aws-saa-questions --remote --file=scripts/seed.sql

# Glossary
bun run scripts/seed-glossary.ts
bunx wrangler d1 execute aws-saa-questions --remote --file=scripts/glossary-seed.sql

Data files

Static content lives in data/ — served as fallback when D1 is empty or unavailable:

File	Content
data/awsServices.ts	All AWS service cards across all 4 SAA-C03 domains + deep notes
data/practiceQuestions.ts	Practice Q&A (fallback for D1 questions table)
data/architectures.ts	React Flow node/edge definitions for visual diagrams
data/glossary.ts	Tooltip glossary terms (fallback for D1 glossary table)

Content scope

Covers all 4 SAA-C03 exam domains:

• D1 — Design Secure Architectures (30%)
• D2 — Design Resilient Architectures (26%)
• D3 — Design High-Performing Architectures (24%)
• D4 — Design Cost-Optimized Architectures (20%)

MCP Servers (Claude Code)

.mcp.json configures MCP servers for use during development with Claude Code.

AWS Documentation MCP

"aws-documentation": {
  "command": "uvx",
  "args": ["awslabs.aws-documentation-mcp-server@latest"]
}

Tools available:

Tool	Use
search_documentation	Search across all AWS docs by keyword
read_documentation	Fetch full content of a specific docs URL
read_sections	Read specific sections from a docs page
recommend	Find related pages or recently updated content

Best used for:

• Verifying exact AWS service definitions (for glossary accuracy)
• Checking official DR strategy descriptions (Pilot Light, Warm Standby, etc.)
• Finding updated service limits, quotas, or new feature docs
• Getting official wording when writing exam notes

Limitations:

• Content often truncated — need multiple calls with start_index for long pages
• Useful for verify + discovery, not for broad "list everything" queries
• For well-known SAA-C03 content, Claude's training data is usually sufficient — MCP shines for recent updates or exact official wording

GitHub Actions

CI/CD workflows live in .github/. See .github/docs/CLAUDE_ACTIONS.md for the Claude Code actions setup.