Overview 📘

Terraform — Common Commands & Examples¶

This cheat-sheet covers commonly used Terraform commands plus short examples and recommendations for module and backend usage.

Command	What it does
`terraform init`	Initialize working directory and download providers/modules.
`terraform plan -out=tfplan`	Create an execution plan and save it.
`terraform apply tfplan`	Apply a previously saved plan.
`terraform apply -auto-approve`	Apply changes without interactive approval (use carefully).
`terraform validate`	Validate config syntax and semantics.
`terraform fmt`	Format Terraform files.
`terraform state list`	List resources in state.
`terraform import <type>.<name> <id>`	Import existing resource into state.
`terraform workspace new <name>` / `select`	Use workspaces for environment separation.
`terraform destroy`	Destroy resources managed by configuration.

Backend (remote state) example — S3 + DynamoDB (AWS)¶

terraform {
    backend "s3" {
        bucket = "my-terraform-state"
        key    = "projectX/terraform.tfstate"
        region = "ap-south-1"
        dynamodb_table = "terraform-state-lock"
    }
}

Module usage example¶

module "vpc" {
    source = "git::https://github.com/example/terraform-aws-vpc.git?ref=v1.2.0"
    name   = "project-vpc"
    cidr   = "10.0.0.0/16"
}

Recommendations

Use remote state with locking (S3 + DynamoDB, Azure Storage + lease) for team collaboration.
Version modules and providers; pin provider versions in required_providers.
Keep state out of VCS; store sensitive outputs in secure stores.
Use CI to run terraform fmt, validate, and plan on PRs.

If you want, I can add an examples/terraform/ folder with a minimal reproducible module and backend example.