What are some effective ways to test AWS services after deployment?

You might find this helpful! Our team set up self-hosted runners with the actions runner controller in GitHub and EKS. They run in a pre-production environment to trigger workflows for builds, vulnerability testing, and integration tests across the microservices whenever a pull request is created. Just a heads up, if your networking or security setup is complex, you might run into some challenges.

Another option is to package your application with the Cloud Development Kit (CDK). You can differentiate between production and canary deployments by using different accounts or context variables. After testing, just tear everything down. It's a solid way to manage your deployments!

Running tests in a staging environment worked for us. I've heard great things about using the AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) for this. You can check their official documentation on how to use it for testing. It might have what you need!