Problem creating Lambda function that has a Layer using boto3 - amazon-web-services

Question

If I try to use boto3 Lambda create_function() to create a Lambda function, and I try to include Layers via Layers=['string'] parameter, I get the following error message:
Unknown parameter in input: "Layers", must be one of: FunctionName, Runtime, Role, Handler, Code, Description, Timeout, MemorySize, Publish, VpcConfig, DeadLetterConfig, Environment, KMSKeyArn, TracingConfig, Tags
... any ideas? The documentation suggests that this should work, but something is clearly off here. NOTE: I also have a similar problem with "Layers" in update_function_configuration() as well.
My guess is that the version of boto3 that the AWS Lambda console uses has not been updated/refreshed yet to support Layers. Because when I run the same code locally on a machine with a fairly recent version of boto3, it runs without any problems. I have already tried using both listed Python runtimes of 3.6 and 3.7 that in the AWS console, but neither worked. These runtimes have respective versions of boto3 of 1.7.74 and 1.9.42. But my local machine has 1.9.59. So perhaps the addition of Lambda Layers occurred between 1.9.42 and 1.9.59.

Answer 1

My guess is that the version of boto3 that the AWS Lambda console uses has not been updated/refreshed yet to support Layers.
That's completely right. AWS usually updates the available libraries on AWS Lambda regularly, but hasn't updated them for several months now for unknown reasons.
The supported API endpoints are actually not defined in boto3, but in botocore.
Currently botocore 1.10.74 is available on AWS Lambda, while support for AWS Lambda Layers got added in botocore 1.12.56.
To avoid such incompatibilities between your code and the versions of available libraries, you should create a deployment package containing boto3 and botocore in addition to your AWS Lambda function code, so your code uses your bundled versions instead the ones AWS provides. That's what AWS suggests as part of their best practices as well:
Control the dependencies in your function's deployment package.
The AWS Lambda execution environment contains a number of libraries such as the AWS SDK for the Node.js and Python runtimes (a full list can be found here: Lambda Execution Environment and Available Libraries). To enable the latest set of features and security updates, Lambda will periodically update these libraries. These updates may introduce subtle changes to the behavior of your Lambda function. To have full control of the dependencies your function uses, we recommend packaging all your dependencies with your deployment package.