Terraform Cloud is a managed Software as a Service (SaaS) platform from HashiCorp that extends the open-source Terraform tool to provide a collaborative and automated environment for Infrastructure as Code (IaC). It offers key features like remote state management for team consistency, version control integration, team access controls, automated workflows, and policy enforcement for governance and security. By providing these features in a hosted service, it simplifies infrastructure provisioning and collaboration for teams working with Terraform across various cloud providers.
GitHub Actions is a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform integrated within GitHub that allows for the automation of software development workflows. It enables developers to automate tasks directly from their repositories, streamlining processes like building, testing, and deploying code.
Slack is a business communication and collaboration platform, often described as the "operating system for work". It provides channels for team discussions, direct messaging for private conversations, and allows for file sharing, audio/video calls, and integration with thousands of other business applications. By centralizing communication and information into a single, searchable, conversational interface, Slack aims to improve team collaboration, streamline projects, and increase productivity for organizations of all sizes.
From my previous article, I deployed virtual machines using Terraform with my state files stored in my local environment. Today, we will explore how to store state files in Terraform Cloud using GitHub Actions to deploy, while also monitoring and alerting via Slack. You can check the article here. It explains from scratch how to deploy virtual machines using Terraform.
Terraform state is your single source of truth for infrastructure. If you store it locally, it’s risky because:
Terraform Cloud solves this by:
Steps: