Terraform AWS Tutorial: Your First Resource

Hands-on Terraform from zero to applied. The fastest path to understanding what state, plan, apply mean.

Step 1: Install Terraform

brew install terraform (macOS); verify with terraform version.

Have AWS credentials configured (aws CLI works).

Step 2: Write configuration

• resource "aws_s3_bucket" "learn" {
    bucket = "tf-learn-$(uuid)"
  }

• Save as main.tf in a fresh directory.

Step 3: Plan and apply

terraform init, downloads providers.

terraform plan, shows what will change.

terraform apply, creates the bucket.

Step 4: Destroy

terraform destroy, tears down.

Inspect: terraform state list, what Terraform manages.

Cleanup: rm -rf .terraform terraform.tfstate* when done.

Antipatterns

• Skipping plan. Apply blindly is dangerous.
• Committing tfstate to git. Use remote state.
• Hard-coded names. Use random_id or variables.

What to do this week

Three moves. (1) Run the tutorial end-to-end on your own laptop / sandbox. (2) Apply the pattern to one production workload. (3) Document the variations you needed; share with the team.