Terraform for Beginners: Your Complete Getting Started Guide

What Is Terraform?

Terraform is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool by HashiCorp. Instead of clicking through cloud consoles, you write declarative configuration files that describe your infrastructure — and Terraform makes it real.

Why Terraform?

• Cloud-agnostic — works with AWS, Azure, GCP, and 3,000+ providers
• Declarative — describe what you want, not how to build it
• State management — tracks what exists and what needs to change
• Plan before apply — preview changes before they happen
• Modular — reuse infrastructure patterns across projects

Installing Terraform

bash
# macOS
brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform

# Ubuntu/Debian
wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install terraform

# Verify
terraform version

Your First Configuration

Create a file called main.tf:

hcl
terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 5.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "aws" {
  region = "eu-west-1"
}

resource "aws_s3_bucket" "my_bucket" {
  bucket = "my-first-terraform-bucket"

  tags = {
    Environment = "dev"
    ManagedBy   = "terraform"
  }
}

The Terraform Workflow

bash
terraform init      # Download providers
terraform plan      # Preview changes
terraform apply     # Create resources
terraform destroy   # Tear everything down

Next Steps

This is just the beginning. Our Terraform for Beginners course covers HCL, state management, modules, security, and real AWS deployments hands-on.