terraform-docs v0.25.1 Release: What Changed and How to Upgrade

Introduction

terraform-docs is the tool many Terraform teams use to auto-generate README documentation (inputs, outputs, providers, resources) directly from .tf module source. The project just tagged v0.25.1, following a previously tracked version of v0.24.0. This article summarizes what the published release notes actually contain and what that means for your pipelines.

What Is New

The release notes for v0.25.1 are thin: the published changelog for this tag lists a single chore commit — the release-prep commit d73141fa37317d84d924366385fb2a8552c0812b ("Release version v0.25.1") — with no feature, fix, or breaking-change entries called out. Contributors credited for this tag are @pascal-hofmann and the automated @terraform-docs-bot.

Because the previously tracked version was v0.24.0 and this tag jumps to v0.25.1, there were presumably intermediate v0.25.0 changes not reflected in this specific tag's notes. If you rely on specific CLI flags, config schema fields, or output formatters, do not assume anything changed or stayed the same based on this notes excerpt — check the full release page and the diff between v0.24.0 and v0.25.1 directly:

https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/releases/tag/v0.25.1

No new flags, config keys, template functions, or deprecations are documented in the notes provided for this tag, so none are listed here. Treat v0.25.1 as a maintenance/patch release until you confirm otherwise against the project's full changelog or CHANGELOG.md history.

Upgrade Steps

If you install the binary directly, grab the new release:

# Linux/macOS via curl (adjust OS/arch as needed)
curl -Lo ./terraform-docs.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/releases/download/v0.25.1/terraform-docs-v0.25.1-$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xzf terraform-docs.tar.gz
chmod +x terraform-docs
sudo mv terraform-docs /usr/local/bin/terraform-docs

If you use Homebrew:

brew upgrade terraform-docs

If you run it via Docker, pull the tagged image instead of latest to pin the version in CI:

docker pull quay.io/terraform-docs/terraform-docs:0.25.1

If you invoke terraform-docs as a pre-commit hook, bump the rev in .pre-commit-config.yaml:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs
    rev: "v0.25.1"
    hooks:
      - id: terraform-docs-go
        args: ["markdown", "table", "--output-file", "README.md", "./"]

This release does not touch Terraform core, so there is no terraform init -upgrade or provider constraint change required — terraform-docs is a standalone CLI, not a provider or module.

Verify

Confirm the binary (or image) reports the expected version:

terraform-docs --version
# expect: terraform-docs version v0.25.1

For the Docker path:

docker run --rm quay.io/terraform-docs/terraform-docs:0.25.1 --version

Then re-run generation against one module to confirm output is unchanged (no diff) given the notes describe no formatting or schema changes:

terraform-docs markdown table --output-file README.md ./modules/example
git diff --stat ./modules/example/README.md

An empty diff is expected for this patch release; a non-empty diff may indicate an undocumented behavior change worth investigating against the full release page.

Conclusion

v0.25.1 of terraform-docs appears to be a routine release-tagging commit with no documented features, fixes, or breaking changes in the notes supplied. Upgrade the binary, image tag, or pre-commit rev as shown above, re-run doc generation to confirm no output drift, and consult the full release page linked above if you need the complete v0.24.0 → v0.25.1 diff before upgrading production CI pipelines.