Terraform — Hands-On

Infrastructure as Code & what Terraform is

Why IaC, declarative vs imperative, Terraform vs alternatives, the provider model.

The CLI workflow: init, plan, apply, destroy

Hands-on with the core loop. First real apply against the lab.

HCL language fundamentals

Blocks, arguments, types, expressions, string interpolation, comments.

Input variables & validation

Declaring variables, types, defaults, sensitive, validation blocks, -var / tfvars.

Resources & data sources

Managing resources; reading existing infra with data sources; resource addressing.

Output values

Exposing values, sensitive outputs, and passing values between modules.

Local values, expressions & built-in functions

locals, for expressions, conditionals, and the function library.

Meta-arguments: count, for_each, depends_on, lifecycle

Multiplying resources, explicit dependencies, and lifecycle controls.

Dynamic blocks

Generating repeated nested blocks from collections.

Modules: authoring & consuming

Module structure, inputs/outputs, sources, versioning, the registry.

State fundamentals & remote backends

What state is, why it exists, local vs remote, locking, the S3 backend.

State operations: import, mv, rm, refresh

Manipulating state safely; importing existing resources.

Provisioners & connections

local-exec, remote-exec, when to use them (and why sparingly).

Workspaces

Multiple state instances from one config; workspace vs directory separation.

Provider configuration: aliases & versions

Multiple provider instances, version constraints, required_providers.

HCP Terraform (Terraform Cloud)

Remote runs, remote state, VCS-driven workflow, private registry.

Testing, validation & security

fmt, validate, tflint, tfsec/checkov, and terraform test.

Troubleshooting & best practices

TF_LOG, common errors, state drift, project layout conventions.