terraform-docs

Terraform questions are easy to answer from stale memory or provider-specific assumptions. Use this skill to ground answers in the official HashiCorp Terraform documentation and return the closest authoritative page instead of generic IaC advice.

When to Use

Use this skill when the request is about:

• Terraform concepts, architecture, and adoption patterns
• Terraform configuration language (HCL), resources, data sources, variables, outputs, and locals
• Terraform CLI commands: init, plan, apply, destroy, import, state, workspace, and fmt
• Providers, modules, and the Terraform Registry
• Remote state, backends, locking, and drift detection
• HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise workflows
• Provider development and module publishing
• Testing, validation, policy, and security for Terraform code
• Upgrading Terraform versions and provider version constraints

Do not use this skill for:

• Raw cloud console operations when the question is provider UI rather than Terraform behavior. Use aws-cli-docs for AWS CLI commands.
• Kubernetes workload YAML or kubectl usage without Terraform context. Use kubernetes-docs instead.
• Helm chart templating or release management. Use helm-docs instead.
• Pulumi, CloudFormation, or other IaC tools unless the user explicitly asks for comparison with Terraform docs.

Workflow

1. Classify the request

Decide which bucket the question belongs to before searching:

• Introduction, concepts, and use cases
• Configuration language and HCL syntax
• Terraform CLI workflows and commands
• Providers and the Terraform Registry
• Modules and reusable configuration
• State, backends, and workspaces
• HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise
• Plugin and provider development
• Testing, policy, and security

If you need a quick starting point, load references/topic-map.md and jump to the closest section.

2. Search official Terraform docs first

• Treat developer.hashicorp.com/terraform as the source of truth for Terraform.
• Prefer pages under https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/docs.
• For provider-specific resource arguments, prefer the provider docs on the Terraform Registry over generic language docs.
• Search with the user's exact terms plus focused Terraform phrases such as terraform plan, backend "s3", for_each, lifecycle, moved block, or required_providers.
• When multiple pages are plausible, compare 2-3 candidate pages and pick the one that most directly answers the user's question.
• For deprecated syntax or removed features, check the upgrade guides before answering from older knowledge.