Terraform Infrastructure as Code AI Skill Guide (Claude)

Overview & Engine Architecture

Terraform (and compatible OpenTofu) declares infrastructure in HCL; providers reconcile API objects against state. A plan is the contract: it shows create/update/destroy. Agents treat state as confidential, locking as mandatory, and refactors as moved blocks in Git—not casual state mv on laptops.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                 Terraform execution graph                   │
│                                                             │
│  Config (*.tf, modules) + variables                         │
│       ↓ init (providers, backend)                           │
│  State (remote S3/GCS/Azure + lock) ←→ refresh              │
│       ↓ plan (graph diff) → saved plan artifact             │
│       ↓ apply (ordered API calls)                           │
│  Outputs → downstream modules / CI / @kubernetes            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘