Write index.html locally

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Goal

After this page you will have an index.html file on disk that renders correctly when opened in a browser locally.

Prerequisites

S3 bucket created

What the page needs to be

The minimum: a valid HTML document with a title and a heading. Nothing else. The point of this tier is the deploy pipeline, not the page.

Create the file

Make a working directory and put the file in it:

bash

mkdir -p ~/aws-beginner-site
cd ~/aws-beginner-site

Create index.html with this exact content:

html

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title>Hello from S3 + CloudFront</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello from S3 + CloudFront</h1>
    <p>Deployed on 2026-06-15.</p>
  </body>
</html>

Verify locally first

Open the file directly in your browser:

bash

open index.html        # macOS
xdg-open index.html    # Linux

You should see the heading "Hello from S3 + CloudFront" and the deploy-date line. If the browser shows raw HTML or an error, fix that before uploading — the upload step doesn't transform the file.

The next page uploads this exact file to your bucket.

Next → Upload index.html to S3

Write index.html locally ​

What the page needs to be ​

Create the file ​

Verify locally first ​

Write index.html locally

What the page needs to be

Create the file

Verify locally first