Manual step resource

[czmirek]

Terraform Version

1.3.3

Use Cases

Make manual steps needed to setup a particular project before and after running terraform apply to be an integral part of the terraform project for purely bookkeeping purposes in a workspace scope.

Terraform code then becomes a complete documentation for both automatically compiled resources handled by terraform and manual steps that are needed to perform any manual steps before and after terraform completes a state update.

Once a manual step is confirmed by the user, it does not need to be confirmed again.

Attempted Solutions

You have a documentation file in your terraform project named something like MANUAL-SETUP.md where you describe every manual step that needs to be done before and after running terraform apply for the first time (after creating a new workspace for a new environment).

Proposal

Create a new type of resource, something like manual resource "name"

manual resource "create_auth0_tenant" {
    type = "before apply"
    require = "Please create the Auth0 tenant first."
}
manual resource "post_apply_add_env_to_confluence" {
    type = "after apply"
    require = "Please add env to the company's Confluence environment table."
}

When you run terraform apply, terraform first asks for confirmation of all manual steps with type = "before apply". These steps are required before terraform apply is run.

terraform apply
> Manual step before apply required: Please create the Auth0 tenant first.
> Type "Done" to confirm.
No
> Error: Manual steps before apply must be all confirmed.

terraform apply
> Manual step before apply required: Please create the Auth0 tenant first.
> Type "Done" to confirm.
Done
> Manual step saved.

Preparing the remote plan...
...

After apply is done, terraform checks any manual resources with type = "after apply". The user is always asked to perform these operations until the step is confirmed to be "Done".

...
Apply finished: 12 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed

> Manual step after apply required: Please add env to the company's Confluence env table.
> Type "Done" to confirm
Done
> Manual step saved

Once you confirm step with "Done" terraform will not ask you again about that step.

References

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