Beginner’s Guide to Terraform

Module 1: Introduction to Terraform & IaC

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: IaC benefits, Terraform vs. other tools, installation, CLI basics

• Hands-on: Install Terraform, initialize a directory, and run terraform init

Module 2: Writing Your First Configuration

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: HCL syntax, declaring providers and resources, basic resource attributes

• Hands-on: Create an AWS EC2 instance and output its public IP

Module 3: Variables, Outputs & State Management

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: Input variables (types, defaults), outputs for consumption, local vs. remote state, locking

• Hands-on: Parameterize your EC2 configuration and store state in an S3 backend

Module 4: Resource Dependencies & Provisioners

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: Implicit vs. explicit dependencies, depends_on, local and remote provisioners

• Hands-on: Deploy a web server on EC2 and configure it using a remote-exec provisioner

Module 5: Modules & Code Organization

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: Creating and using modules, registry modules, versioning, input/output maps

• Hands-on: Build a VPC module and reuse it across multiple environments

Module 6: Terraform Workspaces & Environment Management

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: Workspaces for isolation, naming strategies, managing multiple environments

• Hands-on: Create separate dev and prod workspaces and deploy different configurations

Module 7: Terraform Best Practices & Testing

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: Code formatting, linting (terraform fmt, validate), security scanning, Terratest basics

• Hands-on: Validate configurations, run terraform fmt, and write a simple Go test

Module 8: Collaboration & CI/CD Integration

⏳ 1 week

• Topics: Remote state locking, Terraform Cloud/Enterprise, integrating with GitHub Actions or Jenkins

• Hands-on: Set up a GitHub Actions pipeline to plan and apply on merge to main

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