How to use Terraform for infrastructure as code

Short answer

Write declarative .tf files describing desired infrastructure. Run terraform init, plan, and apply to provision resources. Store state remotely and use modules to reuse configurations across environments.

Details

Terraform uses a plugin-based provider model to support AWS, Azure, GCP, and many other services. It builds a dependency graph from your configuration and creates or updates resources in the correct order. Remote state (in S3, Terraform Cloud, etc.) is essential for team collaboration because it locks state during operations and shares outputs.

Modules let you parameterize and reuse infrastructure patterns, such as a standard VPC or Kubernetes cluster. For deploying those resources on AWS, see How to design a multi-region architecture on AWS. If you are managing DNS as part of your infrastructure, read how to configure DNS records for routing best practices.

Tips

• Always run terraform plan in CI and review the output before apply.
• Use terraform workspace or separate state files per environment to isolate production changes.
• For secrets, integrate with Vault or cloud-native secrets managers rather than committing them to version control.