Top 9 Terraform Tools Every Developer Needs

The Power of Terraform and Its Ecosystem

As a modern web development and cloud architecture consultancy, we at AgileStack know firsthand the transformative power of infrastructure as code (IaC) tools like Terraform. Terraform has become a go-to solution for developers and DevOps teams looking to streamline their cloud infrastructure provisioning and management.

However, Terraform is just the tip of the iceberg. The Terraform ecosystem is rich with a variety of supporting tools that can supercharge your IaC workflow and boost your overall productivity. In this comprehensive blog post, we'll explore the top 9 Terraform tools that every developer needs in their arsenal.

1. Terraform Cloud/Enterprise

Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise are Hashicorp's managed solutions for running Terraform in a collaborative, secure, and scalable environment. These tools offer a range of features that can greatly enhance your Terraform experience, including:

• Remote State Management: Centralize your Terraform state files and eliminate the need for local state storage, enabling seamless collaboration and version control.

• Policy as Code: Enforce organizational policies and security best practices through code, ensuring consistency and compliance across your infrastructure.

• Automation and Integrations: Integrate Terraform with your existing CI/CD pipelines, version control systems, and other tools for a streamlined, end-to-end IaC workflow.

• Governance and Auditing: Gain visibility into your infrastructure changes, track resource usage, and maintain a comprehensive audit trail for compliance and security purposes.

By leveraging Terraform Cloud or Enterprise, you can unlock the full potential of Terraform and streamline your infrastructure management processes.

2. Terragrunt

Terragrunt is a powerful Terraform wrapper that helps you manage complex, multi-environment infrastructure setups. Some of the key benefits of using Terragrunt include:

• DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) Configuration: Terragrunt allows you to define common configurations and variables once, and then reuse them across multiple Terraform modules, reducing duplication and maintenance overhead.

• Hierarchical Configuration: Organize your infrastructure into a nested directory structure, making it easier to manage and navigate large-scale deployments.

• Automated Dependency Management: Terragrunt automatically handles the execution order of your Terraform modules, ensuring that dependencies are properly resolved.

• Remote State Management: Terragrunt seamlessly integrates with remote state backends, such as S3, GCS, and Azure Blob Storage, simplifying state management across your organization.

By incorporating Terragrunt into your Terraform workflow, you can unlock significant productivity gains and maintain a more organized, scalable, and maintainable infrastructure.

3. Atlantis

Atlantis is a powerful Terraform collaboration and automation tool that enables teams to manage infrastructure changes through pull requests. Some of the key features of Atlantis include:

• Pull Request Workflows: Atlantis automatically creates and updates Terraform plans when new pull requests are opened or updated, allowing for easy review and approval of infrastructure changes.

• Automatic Applies: Once a pull request is approved, Atlantis can automatically apply the corresponding Terraform changes, streamlining the deployment process.

• Commenting and Feedback: Atlantis provides a user-friendly interface for team members to comment on and discuss infrastructure changes directly within the pull request.

• Multi-Repository Support: Atlantis can manage Terraform configurations across multiple repositories, making it ideal for organizations with complex, distributed infrastructure setups.

By adopting Atlantis, your team can foster a more collaborative and streamlined approach to infrastructure management, ensuring that all changes are properly reviewed, tested, and deployed.

4. Checkov

Checkov is a static code analysis tool that scans your Terraform configurations for security and compliance issues. Some of the key benefits of using Checkov include:

• Proactive Security: Checkov analyzes your Terraform code and identifies potential security vulnerabilities or misconfigurations, allowing you to address them before deployment.

• Compliance Enforcement: Checkov comes with a vast library of pre-built policies that align with industry standards and regulations, such as CIS, NIST, and PCI-DSS, helping you maintain compliance.

• Cloud-Native Integrations: Checkov seamlessly integrates with popular cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and CI/CD tools, enabling you to incorporate security checks into your existing workflows.

• Customizable Policies: Develop your own custom policies to enforce your organization's unique security and compliance requirements within your Terraform code.

By incorporating Checkov into your Terraform development process, you can ensure that your infrastructure remains secure and compliant, reducing the risk of costly breaches or regulatory fines.

5. Tfsec

Tfsec is another powerful static code analysis tool that helps you identify security vulnerabilities and best practices violations within your Terraform configurations. Some of the key features of Tfsec include:

• Comprehensive Scanning: Tfsec scans your Terraform code for a wide range of security issues, including resource misconfigurations, network exposure, encryption gaps, and more.

• Cloud Provider Support: Tfsec supports all major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and can identify cloud-specific security concerns.

• CI/CD Integration: Tfsec can be easily integrated into your CI/CD pipelines, allowing you to catch security issues early in the development process.

• Extensible Checks: Tfsec provides a growing library of security checks, and you can also create your own custom checks to address your organization's unique security requirements.

By incorporating Tfsec into your Terraform workflow, you can ensure that your infrastructure is built with security in mind, reducing the risk of data breaches, compliance violations, and other security-related incidents.

6. Terratest

Terratest is a Go-based testing framework that helps you write comprehensive, automated tests for your Terraform configurations. Some of the key benefits of using Terratest include:

• Unit and Integration Testing: Terratest allows you to write unit tests for individual Terraform modules, as well as integration tests that validate the interactions between multiple modules.

• Infrastructure Validation: Use Terratest to create end-to-end tests that provision your entire infrastructure and validate its correctness and functionality.

• Parameterized Tests: Terratest supports parameterized tests, enabling you to run the same test suite against different environments or configurations.

• Cloud Provider Abstractions: Terratest provides a set of abstractions that simplify the process of interacting with various cloud providers, making it easier to write cloud-agnostic tests.

By incorporating Terratest into your Terraform development lifecycle, you can ensure the reliability and robustness of your infrastructure, reduce the risk of deployment failures, and maintain a high level of confidence in your IaC codebase.

7. Terraform Docs

Terraform Docs is a simple, yet powerful tool that automatically generates documentation for your Terraform modules. Some of the key features of Terraform Docs include:

• Markdown Generation: Terraform Docs can generate comprehensive Markdown documentation for your modules, including input variables, output values, and resource dependencies.

• Automatic Updates: Whenever you make changes to your Terraform configurations, Terraform Docs can automatically update the corresponding documentation, ensuring that it remains accurate and up-to-date.

• Customizable Formatting: Terraform Docs allows you to customize the formatting and structure of the generated documentation to align with your team's preferences and standards.

• CI/CD Integration: Terraform Docs can be easily integrated into your CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that your documentation is always generated and committed alongside your Terraform code.

By using Terraform Docs, you can streamline the documentation process for your Terraform modules, making it easier for your team and other stakeholders to understand and work with your infrastructure as code.

8. Regula

Regula is a policy as code tool that allows you to define and enforce custom policies for your Terraform configurations. Some of the key features of Regula include:

• Policy as Code: Regula enables you to define your organization's policies and best practices as code, making them easy to version, review, and apply consistently across your infrastructure.

• Cloud-Specific Policies: Regula provides a growing library of pre-built policies that are tailored to specific cloud providers, such as AWS, Azure, and GCP, helping you address cloud-native security and compliance requirements.

• Extensible Policy Engine: Regula's policy engine is built on the Open Policy Agent (OPA) framework, allowing you to create custom policies that align with your unique organizational needs.

• CI/CD Integration: Regula can be seamlessly integrated into your CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that your Terraform configurations are continuously validated against your defined policies.

By incorporating Regula into your Terraform workflow, you can establish a robust governance framework, ensure consistency across your infrastructure, and maintain a high level of security and compliance.

9. Terragrunt-Atlantis-GitHub Actions

While not a single tool, this combination of Terragrunt, Atlantis, and GitHub Actions represents a powerful, end-to-end solution for managing your Terraform-based infrastructure.

• Terragrunt: Provides a DRY, hierarchical configuration management approach, simplifying the management of complex, multi-environment setups.

• Atlantis: Enables a collaborative, pull request-driven workflow for reviewing and approving infrastructure changes.

• GitHub Actions: Integrates the above tools into a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline, automating the provisioning, testing, and deployment of your Terraform configurations.

By leveraging this powerful trio of tools, you can create a streamlined, scalable, and auditable Terraform workflow that promotes collaboration, ensures security and compliance, and ultimately, helps you deliver infrastructure changes more efficiently.

Key Takeaways

• The Terraform ecosystem offers a rich set of supporting tools that can significantly enhance your IaC workflow and boost your overall productivity.

• Tools like Terraform Cloud/Enterprise, Terragrunt, Atlantis, and Checkov can help you centralize state management, enforce policies, automate deployments, and ensure security and compliance.

• Static code analysis tools like Tfsec and Regula can help you identify and address security vulnerabilities and policy violations in your Terraform configurations.

• Testing frameworks like Terratest enable you to write comprehensive, automated tests for your infrastructure, ensuring its reliability and robustness.

• Documentation tools like Terraform Docs can streamline the process of generating and maintaining up-to-date documentation for your Terraform modules.

• By leveraging a combination of these powerful tools, you can create a seamless, end-to-end Terraform workflow that drives efficiency, collaboration, and confidence in your infrastructure as code.

Ready to Take Your Terraform Workflow to the Next Level?

At AgileStack, we're passionate about helping organizations like yours unlock the full potential of Terraform and its supporting ecosystem. Our team of experienced developers and cloud architects can work with you to assess your current IaC setup, identify areas for improvement, and implement a tailored solution that leverages the right Terraform tools and best practices.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation and learn how we can help you supercharge your Terraform workflow and drive your digital transformation forward.