Getting Started with Terraform

Terraform by HashiCorp lets you define and manage infrastructure as code (IaC) using a declarative config language.

Why Terraform?

• Multi-cloud: Same workflow for AWS, GCP, Azure, and many providers.
• State: Tracks what exists and only applies changes.
• Plan: terraform plan shows what will change before you apply.

Basic example (local file)

terraform {
  required_providers {
    local = { source = "hashicorp/local", version = "~> 2.0" }
  }
}

resource "local_file" "hello" {
  content  = "Hello, Terraform!"
  filename = "${path.module}/hello.txt"
}

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply -auto-approve

Key concepts

• Provider: Plugin for a cloud or service (e.g. aws, google).
• Resource: A piece of infrastructure (e.g. aws_instance, local_file).
• State: terraform.tfstate stores current state; keep it safe (e.g. remote backend).

Start with the Terraform tutorials.