Allow Backend-Only Amplify Deployments Without Frontend Definition

[A-dith-ya]

Before opening, please confirm:

• I have checked to see if my question is addressed in the FAQ.
• I have searched for duplicate or closed issues.
• I have removed any sensitive information from my code snippets and submission.

Amplify Hosting feature

Build settings

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe:

Currently, deploying an Amplify app without a frontend build definition results in the following error:
!!! CustomerError: Missing frontend definition in buildspec
This error occurs even when the intention is to deploy only the backend.

Describe how you'd like this feature to work

Add a setting in Amplify app config to disable frontend build steps ("frontend": false). Enable support for backend-only deployments without requiring a frontend definition in amplify.yml.

[github-actions]

This has been identified as a feature request. If this feature is important to you, we strongly encourage you to give a 👍 reaction on the request. This helps us prioritize new features most important to you. Thank you!

[MyNameIsTakenOMG]

I bumped into the same issue when I tried to deploy my backend app for my monorepo. Because I just removed the frontend section from the auto-generated build spec or amplify.yml. And seems like the build spec does need this section. So in order to accommodate the build spec requirements, I manually added a build script in my package.json, something like this: "build": "esbuild amplify/backend.ts --bundle --platform=node --outdir=dist --target=es2022 --format=esm".

But I personally agree, in the context of deploying amplify backend, this frontend: build step does not make much sense to me