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Setup

Also available as a 18min video
How to set up Remotion Lambda

1. Install @remotion/lambda

npm i --save-exact @remotion/lambda@4.0.161
npm i --save-exact @remotion/lambda@4.0.161
This assumes you are currently using v4.0.161 of Remotion.
Also update remotion and all `@remotion/*` packages to the same version.
Remove all ^ character in front of the version numbers of it as it can lead to a version conflict.

2. Create role policy

  • Go to AWS account IAM Policies section
  • Click on "Create policy"
  • Click on JSON
  • In your project, type npx remotion lambda policies role in the command line and copy it into the "JSON" field on AWS.
  • Click next. On the tags page, you don't need to fill in anything. Click next again.
  • Give the policy exactly the name remotion-lambda-policy. The other fields can be left as they are.

3. Create a role

  • Go to AWS account IAM Roles section
  • Click "Create role".
  • Under "Use cases", select "Lambda". Click next.
  • Under "Permissions policies", filter for remotion-lambda-policy and click the checkbox to assign this policy. Click next.
  • In the final step, name the role remotion-lambda-role exactly. You can leave the other fields as is.
  • Click "Create role" to confirm.

4. Create a user

  • Go to AWS account IAM Users section
  • Click Add users
  • Enter any username, such as remotion-user.
  • Don't check the "Enable console access" option. You don't need it.
  • Click "Next".
  • Click "Next" again without changing any settings. You should now be on the "Review and Create" step.
  • Click "Create user".

5. Create an access key for the user

  • Go to AWS account IAM Users section
  • Click on the name of the user that was created in step 4.
  • Navigate to the "Security Credentials" tab, and scroll down to the "Access Keys" section.
  • Click the "Create access key" button.
  • Select "Application running on an AWS compute service".
  • Ignore warnings that might appear and check the "I understand the recommendations..." checkbox.
  • Click "Next".
  • Click "Create access key".
  • Add a .env file to your project's root and add the credentials you just copied in the following format:
.env
txt
REMOTION_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<Access key ID>
REMOTION_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<Secret access key>
.env
txt
REMOTION_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<Access key ID>
REMOTION_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<Secret access key>

6. Add permissions to your user

  • Go to AWS account IAM Users section
  • Select the user you just created.
  • Click "Add inline policy" under the "Add Permissions" dropdown in the "Permissions policies" panel.
  • Click the tab "JSON".
  • Enter in your terminal: npx remotion lambda policies user and copy into the AWS text field what gets printed.
  • Click "Review policy".
  • Give the policy a name. For example remotion-user-policy, but it can be anything.
  • Click "Create policy" to confirm.

7. Optional: Validate the permission setup

Check all user permissions and validate them against the AWS Policy simulator by executing the following command:

bash
npx remotion lambda policies validate
bash
npx remotion lambda policies validate

For the following steps, you may execute them on the CLI, or programmatically using the Node.JS APIs.

8. Deploy a function

Deploy a function that can render videos into your AWS account by executing the following command:

bash
npx remotion lambda functions deploy
bash
npx remotion lambda functions deploy

The function consists of necessary binaries and JavaScript code that can take a serve URL and make renders from it. A function is bound to the Remotion version, if you upgrade Remotion, you need to deploy a new function. A function does not include your Remotion code, it will be deployed in the next step instead.

9. Deploy a site

Run the following command to deploy your Remotion project to an S3 bucket. Pass as the last argument the entry point of the project.

bash
npx remotion lambda sites create src/index.ts --site-name=my-video
bash
npx remotion lambda sites create src/index.ts --site-name=my-video

A Serve URL will be printed pointing to the deployed project.

When you update your Remotion video in the future, redeploy your site. Pass the same --site-name to overwrite the previous deploy. If you don't pass --site-name, a unique URL will be generated on every deploy.

10. Check AWS concurrency limit

Check the concurrency limit that AWS has given to your account:

npx remotion lambda quotas
npx remotion lambda quotas

By default, it is 1000 concurrent invocations per region. However, new accounts might have a limit as low as 10. Each Remotion render may use as much as 200 functions per render concurrently, so if your assigned limit is very low, you might want to request an increase right away.

11. Render a video

Take the URL you received from the step 9 - your "serve URL" - and run the following command. Also pass in the ID of the composition you'd like to render.

bash
npx remotion lambda render <serve-url> <composition-id>
bash
npx remotion lambda render <serve-url> <composition-id>

Progress will be printed until the video finished rendering. Congrats! You rendered your first video using Remotion Lambda 🚀

Next steps