diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/README.md b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/README.md
index 4cbe52502eb36..3d841caa1f4ce 100644
--- a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/README.md
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/README.md
@@ -25,12 +25,7 @@ myTopic.subscribeUrl('MyHttpsSubscription', 'https://foobar.com/');
 
 Subscribe a queue to the topic:
 
-```ts
-const myTopic = new Topic(stack, 'MyTopic');
-const queue = new Queue(stack, 'MyQueue');
-
-myTopic.subscribeQueue(queue);
-```
+[Example of subscribing a queue to a topic](test/integ.sns-sqs.lit.ts)
 
 Note that subscriptions of queues in different accounts need to be manually confirmed by
 reading the initial message from the queue and visiting the link found in it.
@@ -39,15 +34,7 @@ reading the initial message from the queue and visiting the link found in it.
 
 SNS topics can be used as targets for CloudWatch event rules:
 
-```ts
-const myTopic = new Topic(this, 'MyTopic');
-const rule = new EventRule(this, 'Rule', { /* ... */ });
-
-rule.addTarget(myTopic);
-
-// or use as a target in an onXxx method
-codeCommitRepo.onCommit('OnCommit', myTopic);
-```
+[Example of CloudWatch Event rules](examples/sns-codecommit-event-rule-target.lit.ts)
 
-This will result in adding a target to the event rule and will also modify the topic resource
-policy to allow CloudWatch events to publish to the topic.
+This will result in adding a target to the event rule and will also modify
+the topic resource policy to allow CloudWatch events to publish to the topic.
diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/examples/README.md b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/examples/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..95ecbec2eafbb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/examples/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+The files in this directory cannot actually be compiled, because including their
+dependencies would introduce a dependency cycle. I've put them off to the side
+for now, but we should fix this at some point, probably by putting them in a
+separate project.
diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/examples/sns-codecommit-event-rule-target.lit.ts b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/examples/sns-codecommit-event-rule-target.lit.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..d44a73fbc463b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/examples/sns-codecommit-event-rule-target.lit.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+import { Repository } from '@aws-cdk/codecommit';
+import { App, Stack, StackProps } from "@aws-cdk/core";
+import { EventRule } from "@aws-cdk/events";
+import { Topic } from "../lib";
+
+class IntegStack extends Stack {
+    constructor(parent: App, name: string, props?: StackProps) {
+        super(parent, name, props);
+
+        const codeCommitRepo = new Repository(this, 'Repo', {
+            repositoryName: 'TestRepo'
+        });
+
+        /// !show
+        const myTopic = new Topic(this, 'MyTopic');
+
+        // Use an EventRule and add the topic as a target
+        const rule = new EventRule(this, 'Rule', {
+            scheduleExpression: 'rate(1 minute)'
+        });
+        rule.addTarget(myTopic);
+
+        // Or use one of the onXxx methods on event sources
+        codeCommitRepo.onCommit('OnCommit', myTopic);
+
+        /// !hide
+    }
+}
+
+const app = new App(process.argv);
+new IntegStack(app, 'aws-cdk-sns-event-target');
+process.stdout.write(app.run());
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.expected.json b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.lit.expected.json
similarity index 100%
rename from packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.expected.json
rename to packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.lit.expected.json
diff --git a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.ts b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.lit.ts
similarity index 93%
rename from packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.ts
rename to packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.lit.ts
index c3e7a39fef3e9..d7e0a2699e598 100644
--- a/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.ts
+++ b/packages/@aws-cdk/sns/test/integ.sns-sqs.lit.ts
@@ -6,10 +6,12 @@ class SnsToSqs extends Stack {
     constructor(parent: App, name: string, props?: StackProps) {
         super(parent, name, props);
 
+        /// !show
         const topic = new Topic(this, 'MyTopic');
         const queue = new Queue(this, 'MyQueue');
 
         topic.subscribeQueue(queue);
+        /// !hide
     }
 }