Introduction to Terraform

Why not just click infrastructure together? This module shows the difference between manual configuration and declarative infrastructure code: reproducible, version-controlled, reviewable. You compare Terraform with alternatives like Ansible, CloudFormation and Pulumi and understand when to use which tool. We also provide a factual overview of the current license situation (BSL) and the open-source fork OpenTofu.

Instead of lengthy theory, you write your first HCL file right away. You learn the building blocks of the HashiCorp Configuration Language: resource blocks, data blocks, attributes and references. Using the Local Provider, you create files on your system and run through the complete cycle from terraform init to terraform apply. By the end of this block, you read HCL like a familiar language.

Providers connect Terraform to the outside world: AWS, Azure, GCP or hundreds of other APIs. You configure your first cloud provider, pin versions in the required_providers block and understand the lifecycle of a terraform plan and terraform apply. Afterward, you know what happens under the hood with every command and why terraform plan before every apply is mandatory.

Hardcoded values make configurations inflexible. You work with input variables, define types (string, number, list, map, object) and set defaults and validation rules. With outputs you make results visible to other modules and the command line, and with locals you avoid repetition. At the end, you refactor your first configuration into a cleanly parameterised version.

Everything you learned comes together: you provision a dedicated VM with security group and elastic IP in the cloud. You use variables for region and instance type, outputs for the public IP, and the Terraform documentation as a reference. By the end of the day, your first code-defined infrastructure is running.