How to update a Map or a List on AWS DynamoDB document API?

Please take a look at UpdateExpression in the UpdateItem API

For example given an item with a list:

{
    "hashkey": {"S" : "my_key"},
    "my_list" : {"L": 
        [{"N":"3"},{"N":"7"} ]
}

You can update the list with code like the following:

UpdateItemRequest request = new UpdateItemRequest();
request.setTableName("myTableName");
request.setKey(Collections.singletonMap("hashkey", 
    new AttributeValue().withS("my_key")));
request.setUpdateExpression("list_append(:prepend_value, my_list)");
request.setExpressionAttributeValues(
    Collections.singletonMap(":prepend_value", 
        new AttributeValue().withN("1"))
    );
dynamodb.updateItem(request);`

You can also append to the list by reversing the order of the arguments in the list_append expression.

An expression like: SET user.address.zipcode = :zip would address a JSON map element combined with expression attribute values {":zip" : {"N":"12345"}}

Base on DynamoDB examples, this also work (scala)

val updateItemSpec:UpdateItemSpec = new UpdateItemSpec()
    .withPrimaryKey("hashkey", my_key)
  .withUpdateExpression("set my_list = list_append(:prepend_value, my_list)")
  .withValueMap(new ValueMap()
      .withList(":prepend_value", "1"))
  .withReturnValues(ReturnValue.UPDATED_NEW)
println("Updating the item...")
val outcome: UpdateItemOutcome = table.updateItem(updateItemSpec)
println("UpdateItem succeeded:\n" + outcome.getItem.toJSONPretty)