Infrastructure as Code FAQ: Top Questions

Integrating Terraform into your CI/CD pipeline helps automate infrastructure changes and enforces best practices like validation, review, and controlled rollouts. Common CI/CD platforms include GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, and CircleCI.

🗺️ Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Store your Terraform code in a Git repository.
2. Set up secrets like AWS credentials in the CI/CD platform’s secrets manager.
3. Create a CI workflow that runs terraform fmt, terraform validate, plan, and optionally apply.
4. Separate plan and apply steps; require manual approval or merge triggers for production applies.

📥 Example Input:

# .github/workflows/terraform.yml
name: 'Terraform CI'

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request:

jobs:
  terraform:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Setup Terraform
        uses: hashicorp/setup-terraform@v2

      - name: Terraform Format
        run: terraform fmt -check

      - name: Terraform Init
        run: terraform init

      - name: Terraform Validate
        run: terraform validate

      - name: Terraform Plan
        run: terraform plan -input=false

🏆 Expected Output:

Terraform code is automatically checked, validated, and planned on every pull request or push.

📘 Detailed Explanation:

• Validation Automation: CI checks prevent malformed code from being merged.
• Secure Secrets: Store and access secrets via the CI/CD platform (e.g., GitHub Secrets).
• Branch Strategy: Run plan on feature branches, and apply only on main or via a deploy trigger.
• Approval Workflow: Adds review steps before critical infrastructure changes are applied.

🛠️ Use Cases:

• Automated linting and security scanning of Terraform code.
• Infrastructure plan previews on every pull request.
• Controlled deployment workflows for different environments.
• Triggering Terraform applies from release branches or tags.