What is Terraform used for?

Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool made by HashiCorp. It allows you to define cloud infrastructure, like servers, databases, networking, and DNS records, in configuration files, then create or destroy that infrastructure with a single command. It works with major cloud providers, including AWS, GCP, and Azure. Teams use it to manage infrastructure and backends consistently across environments instead of clicking through cloud consoles by hand. Check out our Terraform backend guide to get started with Terraform today.

Is Terraform like GitHub?

No. GitHub is a platform for storing and collaborating on code. Terraform is a tool for provisioning infrastructure. The two are often used together: you store your Terraform configuration files in a GitHub repo, but they serve completely different purposes. GitHub tracks code history, whereas Terraform talks to cloud APIs to create actual resources.

Is Terraform based on Python?

No, Terraform is written in Go. Configuration files use a language called HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language), which is designed to be human-readable and focused on describing infrastructure. You don't need to know Python or Go to use Terraform; knowing how to write HCL files should be enough.

Terraform Roadmap

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Step by step guide to learn Terraform in 2026

110 topics

Introduction

Secret Management

Compliance / Sentinel

HCP

Terrascan

Remote State

Best Practices for State

When to Use?

Creation / Destroy Time

file provisioner

local-exec provisioner

remote-exec provisioner

Custom Provisioners

Data Sources

Preconditions

Format & Validate

Outputs

Variable Definition File

Local Values

Resource Behavior

Resource Lifecycle

Meta Arguments

Variables

Splitting Large State

Parallelism

Deployment Workflow

Terragrunt

Infracost

Security

Providers

Hashicorp Config. Language (HCL)

Modules

GitHub Actions

Circle CI

GitLab CI

Jenkins

Testing

Unit Testing

Contract Testing

Scaling Terraform

Integration Testing

End to End Testing

Testing Modules

Provisioners

Root vs Child Modules

terraform fmt

terraform validate

TFLint

Deployment

Terraform Registry

Configuring Providers

Versions

Resources

What and when to use HCP?

Enterprise Features

Authentication

Workspaces

VCS Integration

Run Tasks

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What is Infrastructure as Code?

What is Terraform?

Getting Started

Usecases and Benefits

CaC vs IaC

Installing Terraform

Template Files

State

State Management

terraform destroy

Inspect / Modify State

CI / CD Integration

terraform apply

Clean Up

What is HCL?

Basic Syntax

Project Initialization

Workspaces

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Output Syntax

Sensitive Outputs

Input Variables

Type Constraints

depends_on

Sensitive Data

count

Versioning

for_each

Splitting State Files

provider

Environment Variables

Import Existing Resources

lifecycle

Validation Rules

State Locking

terraform plan

graph

show

list

output

-replace option in apply

state pull / push

Published Modules Usage

state replace-provider

Creating Local Modules

state force-unlock

Inputs / Outputs

Basic / Advanced Commands

Modules Best Practices

Version Management

Checkov

Trivy

KICS

DevOps

Linux

Docker

Kubernetes

React Flow

Frequently asked questions

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