Every article tagged Terraform, in one place.
Showing 10 articles
Clicking around a cloud console is fine once. For anything you need to repeat, review or recover, describe infrastructure in code. Terraform reads configuration files and creates, updates or deletes cloud resources to match. A first configuration # main.tf ter...
The state file is Terraform's memory: which real resources belong to which blocks in your code. For a team, it must be shared, locked during changes and protected, because it can contain secrets. An S3 backend with locking terraform { backend "s3" { bucket = "...
Hard-coded values make Terraform code impossible to reuse. Variables bring values in, locals compute values once, and outputs send values out. Input variables # variables.tf variable "environment" { type = string description = "Deployment environment" validati...
A module is a folder of Terraform files used as a building block. Good modules capture your organisation's standards (encryption on, tags set, sensible defaults) so every team gets them for free. Module layout modules/static-site/ main.tf # resources variables...
Almost every project needs the same infrastructure in several environments, with small differences: smaller instances in dev, more replicas in prod. There are three common approaches. 1. Separate directories (most common) infra/ modules/ app/ # the shared buil...
Most teams adopt Terraform after resources already exist. Recreating them isn't an option, so you import them: tell Terraform that an existing resource belongs to a block in your code. Import blocks # imports.tf import { to = aws_s3_bucket.uploads id = "acme-s...
Terraform identifies resources by their address, like aws_s3_bucket.assets . Rename it in code and Terraform plans to destroy the old one and create a new one, which for a database is a disaster. moved and removed blocks tell Terraform what you really meant. R...
Running terraform apply from laptops leads to "who changed this?" moments and state conflicts. A CI workflow makes every change visible, reviewed and repeatable. The flow A pull request changes Terraform code. CI runs fmt , validate and plan , and shows the pl...
In 2023 HashiCorp changed Terraform's licence from the open-source MPL 2.0 to the Business Source License (BSL). In response, a group of companies forked the last open-source version as OpenTofu , now a Linux Foundation project. What's the same The HCL languag...
Modules are code that many teams depend on, so they deserve tests. Terraform includes a test framework: .tftest.hcl files with runs and assertions. A plan-only test # tests/naming.tftest.hcl variables { environment = "staging" domain = "shop.example.com" } run...
