Feature request: ability to set `maxAge` and `decrypt` via environment variables for Parameters

[dreamorosi]

Use case

This is a cross-post from aws-powertools/powertools-lambda-typescript#1380 opened by mikebroberts, in turn generated by this Discord discussion.

Quoting:

I typically want to always set "decrypt" to true when getting parameters (since that works just fine whether an underlying SSM param is encrypted or not, and I'm accessing infrequently enough that costs and rate limiting is not a concern), and further I'd like to have a much longer default TTL for caching parameters so that I don't have to configure on every request.

Additional context:
At the moment customers have to specify maxAge and decrypt whenever they retrieve a parameter value. Some customer, like the OP, would instead like to set these settings at the function/environment level via env variable.

The original discussion/issue was requested for the SSMProvider specifically, but I believe that maxAge could apply to other providers as well.

Solution/User Experience

Be able to set env vars for default values for the parameters module, e.g. :

POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_TTL = 86400 # (1 day)
POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_DECRYPT = True

Alternative solutions

Creating custom wrappers around methods.

Acknowledgment

• This feature request meets Lambda Powertools Tenets
• Should this be considered in other Lambda Powertools languages? i.e. Java, TypeScript

[heitorlessa]

thank you @dreamorosi !! As fast as lightning.. ⚡

[leandrodamascena]

Hey @dreamorosi! Thank you for opening this issue. I see that you suggested setting the environment variable as POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_TTL and POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_DECRYPT in this issue, but looking at the TS code, I see that you created these variable as POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_MAX_AGE and POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_SSM_DECRYPT. Reference: https://github.com/awslabs/aws-lambda-powertools-typescript/pull/1384/files#diff-b4d68dc855d0f9476d3f2ee343853bd21bf82ea9960d0cf06661baa244439dd6R308

I think it makes sense that we keep (when possible) the same configuration in all languages and will use the same name you used in Typescript.

Any objections @heitorlessa @rubenfonseca?

[dreamorosi]

Hi Leandro, I created this issue using an initial suggestion from the customer before implementing it in our repo.

Heitor has already reviewed the names in the PR, I think you should be good to go with POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_MAX_AGE and POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_SSM_DECRYPT :)

[leandrodamascena]

Hi Leandro, I created this issue using an initial suggestion from the customer before implementing it in our repo.

Heitor has already reviewed the names in the PR, I think you should be good to go with POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_MAX_AGE and POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_SSM_DECRYPT :)

Thanks for the prompt reply @dreamorosi! You are unstoppable :)

[satishbpatil]

Easy it easier to understand POWERTOOLS_CACHE_TTL than POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_TTL

[leandrodamascena]

Hi @satishbpatil thanks for this suggestion. I agree that the variable name POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_TTL is confusing to understand and we changed it to POWERTOOLS_PARAMETERS_MAX_AGE to go the same way that Powertools Typescript did.

[github-actions]

⚠️COMMENT VISIBILITY WARNING⚠️

This issue is now closed. Please be mindful that future comments are hard for our team to see.

If you need more assistance, please either tag a team member or open a new issue that references this one.

If you wish to keep having a conversation with other community members under this issue feel free to do so.