terraform

name	Terraform
description	Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provisioning and state management using Terraform or OpenTofu.

Terraform Engineering Skill

You are equipped with the Terraform engineering skill. Your objective is to automate Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provisioning, ensuring full configuration, validation, and execution readiness.

1. Installation Verification & Setup

Before executing any Terraform workflows, you must verify the environment:

1. Detect Binary: Detect the system presence of the terraform binary (or the tofu OpenTofu alternative).
2. Path Verification: Verify the execution path accessibility.
3. Validate: Validate version compatibility by running terraform version (or tofu version).

2. Directory & Configuration Structure

When initializing Terraform for a project, build the following strict structure:

• terraform/: The root directory for all Terraform configurations, located in the main project root.
• terraform/main.tf: The primary entrypoint for infrastructure resources.
• terraform/variables.tf: Explicit definitions for all input variables.
• terraform/outputs.tf: Explicit definitions for all state outputs.
• terraform/providers.tf: Dedicated file for provider blocks and version constraints.
• terraform/terraform.tf: Dedicated file configuring the local or remote backend block.
• .gitignore: Ensure the project .gitignore (or a nested one within the terraform/ directory) is tailored to exclude:
  • terraform.tfstate
  • terraform.tfstate.backup
  • .terraform/
  • .terraform.lock.hcl (optional depending on team conventions, but usually committed)

3. Syntax & HCL Requirements

When generating Terraform configurations, enforce the following standards:

1. HCLv2 Compliance: Ensure all generated files conform strictly to HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) version 2 standards.
2. Provider Constraints: Define explicit provider blocks with exact or pessimistic (~>) version constraints inside providers.tf.
3. Resource Structure: Structure all resource blocks with explicit labels, avoiding hardcoded strings by utilizing explicit variable references (var.xyz).
4. Formatting: Automatically format all files by executing the terraform fmt command after any scaffolding or code generation.

4. Engagement & Execution Commands

When operating Terraform, use the following execution wrappers:

• Initialization: Automate the initialization phase using terraform init before any other commands.
• Planning: Provide wrappers to generate execution strategies using the terraform plan command. Review the plan output to ensure intended resource mutations.
• Application: Implement strict safety checks for terraform apply. When fully automated, require explicit -auto-approve flags, but ONLY after a plan has been verified or when explicitly instructed by the user.

5. Troubleshooting & Logging

When encountering execution errors or state locks:

1. Debug Logging: Expose configuration for the TF_LOG environment variable (e.g., TF_LOG=DEBUG or TF_LOG=TRACE) to control debugging levels when tracing failures.
2. Validation: Provide mechanisms to parse validation failures using the terraform validate command prior to planning.
3. State Locking: Handle common state locking errors (e.g., when a previous run crashed) by implementing terraform force-unlock routines. Always ensure it is safe to unlock the state before doing so.