Reference
Terraform Glossary — Key Terms & Concepts Explained
Definitions of core Terraform concepts: state, modules, providers, workspaces, backends, providers, lifecycle rules, and more — with links to in-depth articles.
- A–Z definitions
- Plain English
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A concise reference of the most common Terraform terms, with links to detailed articles for each concept.
Core Concepts
#- Provider — A plugin that lets Terraform interact with a cloud, SaaS, or API. See Configuring and using Terraform providers.
- Resource — A piece of infrastructure managed by Terraform (e.g. an EC2 instance, S3 bucket, DNS record).
- Module — A reusable, parameterised collection of
.tffiles. See What are Terraform modules?. - State — A snapshot of the real-world infrastructure Terraform manages. See Managing state and state locking and Terraform state explained.
- Backend — Where the state file is stored. See Remote backends with AWS S3.
- Workspace — A named instance of state for the same configuration. See What are Terraform workspaces?.
- Plan / Apply / Destroy — The three core lifecycle commands. See Terraform commands overview.
Configuration Language
#- HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) — Terraform's domain-specific language. See HCL basics.
- Variables / Outputs — Inputs and exported values. See Terraform input and output variables.
- Lifecycle rules —
create_before_destroy,prevent_destroy,ignore_changes. See Understanding Terraform lifecycle rules. - Count / for_each — Resource multiplexing. See Understanding count and for_each.
Operations
#- Import — Bringing existing infrastructure under management. See Importing resources into Terraform.
- Taint — Marking a resource for recreation. See Terraform resource tainting techniques.
- Drift — Divergence between state and reality.
- Dependency lock file (
.terraform.lock.hcl) — Pins provider versions. - Version constraints — See Managing version constraints.
Related reading
#Browse the full collection in Articles, filter by Tags, or jump into the Cheatsheet.