The Terraform language is Terraform's primary user interface, and all of Terraform's workflows rely on configurations written in the Terraform language.
Terraform CLI includes several commands to make Terraform code more convenient to work with. Integrating these commands into your editing workflow can potentially save you time and effort.
The terraform console
command starts an
interactive shell for evaluating Terraform
expressions, which can be a faster way
to verify that a particular resource argument results in the value you expect.
The terraform fmt
command rewrites Terraform
configuration files to a canonical format and style, so you don't have to
waste time making minor adjustments for readability and consistency. It works
well as a pre-commit hook in your version control system.
The terraform validate
command validates the
syntax and arguments of the Terraform configuration files in a directory,
including argument and attribute names and types for resources and modules.
The plan
and apply
commands automatically validate a configuration before
performing any other work, so validate
isn't a crucial part of the core
workflow, but it can be very useful as a pre-commit hook or as part of a
continuous integration pipeline.
The 0.13upgrade
command and
the 0.12upgrade
command can automatically
modify the configuration files in a Terraform module to help deal with major
syntax changes that occurred in the 0.13 and 0.12 releases of Terraform. Both
of these commands are only available in the Terraform version they are
associated with, and you are expected to upgrade older code to be compatible
with 0.12 before attempting to make it compatible with 0.13. For more detailed
information about updating code for new Terraform versions, see the upgrade
guides in the Terraform language docs.