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Terraform in Depth
An in-depth guide to everything Terraform, complete with newly established best practices and experienced insights into Infrastructure as Code.
Terraform, and its new open source fork OpenTofu, practically eliminates manual infrastructure configuration, making it possible to script and automate almost every aspect of system management and administration. Its “Infrastructure as Code (IaC)” approach has a simple-yet-awesome premise: provision, update, scale, and replicate your infrastructure with the same ease as your application code. In Terraform in Depth, you’ll discover absolutely everything you need to automate and manage your infrastructure with just a few lines of code.
Inside Terraform in Depth, you’ll learn how to:
- Understand and write basic Terraform code
- Avoid vendor lock-in with the open source OpenTofu
- Switch between OpenTofu and Terraform as needed to
- Construct continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines with Terraform
- Organize Terraform projects and modules for team-based, production use
- Develop and test robust Terraform modules and Create custom Terraform providers
Terraform in Depth is fully up to date with the latest versions, standards, and approaches of Terraform and OpenTofu. Complete and comprehensive, its one-stop approach covers everything from Terraform and OpenTofu’s absolute basics all the way to advanced production uses. Every technique is illustrated with the kind of real-world examples infrastructure engineers encounter every day.
about the book
Terraform in Depth teaches you to effectively create and manage your infrastructure as Terraform code. Inside, you’ll find essential insights into modern Terraform, including newly established patterns, best practices, and methods for empowering your development team with IaC. Each chapter is fully illustrated with hands-on examples, such as creating a flexible Terraform module to launch EC2 instances and debugging complex Terraform plans.
Starting with the basics of reading and writing Terraform code, you’ll quickly be able to define your infrastructure with Terraform and create reusable instances of your projects. Next, you’ll dive into Terraform’s advanced functions—including CI/CD pipelines, registries to distribute modules, and utilizing built-in tools for documentation, security, and module quality. Finally, you’ll learn the secrets of Terraform code management, including rules for refactoring, testing modules, and advanced module patterns.
Terraform, and its new open source fork OpenTofu, practically eliminates manual infrastructure configuration, making it possible to script and automate almost every aspect of system management and administration. Its “Infrastructure as Code (IaC)” approach has a simple-yet-awesome premise: provision, update, scale, and replicate your infrastructure with the same ease as your application code. In Terraform in Depth, you’ll discover absolutely everything you need to automate and manage your infrastructure with just a few lines of code.
Inside Terraform in Depth, you’ll learn how to:
- Understand and write basic Terraform code
- Avoid vendor lock-in with the open source OpenTofu
- Switch between OpenTofu and Terraform as needed to
- Construct continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines with Terraform
- Organize Terraform projects and modules for team-based, production use
- Develop and test robust Terraform modules and Create custom Terraform providers
Terraform in Depth is fully up to date with the latest versions, standards, and approaches of Terraform and OpenTofu. Complete and comprehensive, its one-stop approach covers everything from Terraform and OpenTofu’s absolute basics all the way to advanced production uses. Every technique is illustrated with the kind of real-world examples infrastructure engineers encounter every day.
about the book
Terraform in Depth teaches you to effectively create and manage your infrastructure as Terraform code. Inside, you’ll find essential insights into modern Terraform, including newly established patterns, best practices, and methods for empowering your development team with IaC. Each chapter is fully illustrated with hands-on examples, such as creating a flexible Terraform module to launch EC2 instances and debugging complex Terraform plans.
Starting with the basics of reading and writing Terraform code, you’ll quickly be able to define your infrastructure with Terraform and create reusable instances of your projects. Next, you’ll dive into Terraform’s advanced functions—including CI/CD pipelines, registries to distribute modules, and utilizing built-in tools for documentation, security, and module quality. Finally, you’ll learn the secrets of Terraform code management, including rules for refactoring, testing modules, and advanced module patterns.
- GenresProgramming
450 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 2024
4 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
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May 1, 2025An in-depth guide to everything Terraform, complete with newly established best practices and experienced insights into Infrastructure as Code.
Terraform and its open-source fork OpenTofu’s “Infrastructure as Code (IaC)” approach has redefined the way you manage your infrastructure. Its premise is simple-yet-awesome: provision, update, scale, and replicate your infrastructure with the same ease as your application code. In Terraform in Depth, you’ll discover absolutely everything you need to automate and manage your infrastructure with just a few lines of code. Inside Terraform in Depth, you’ll learn how to: • Understand and write basic Terraform code • Avoid vendor lock-in with the open source OpenTofu • Switch between OpenTofu and Terraform as needed • Construct continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines for Terraform • Organize Terraform projects and modules for team-based, production use • Develop and test robust Terraform modules • Create custom Terraform providers Terraform in Depth is fully up to date with the latest versions, standards, and approaches of Terraform and OpenTofu. Complete and comprehensive, its one-stop approach covers everything from Terraform and OpenTofu’s absolute basics all the way to advanced production uses. Every technique is illustrated with the kind of real-world examples infrastructure engineers encounter every day. Forewords by Anton Babenko and Christian Mesh. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the technology Terraform and its open-source fork OpenTofu practically eliminate manual infrastructure configuration. With the Terraform infrastructure management tool, even complex operations that used to require kludgy scripts and time-sucking tinkering can be created, managed, and shared as an organized codebase. Master Terraform, and you’ll be able to update a fleet of machines with just a few lines of code. About the book Terraform in Depth teaches Terraform techniques and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices that you can use to deploy and manage applications in the cloud or your on-prem data center. Each chapter includes interesting hands-on examples, such as creating a flexible Terraform module and debugging Terraform plans. You’ll quickly learn to define your infrastructure with Terraform. Then, you’ll dive into advanced applications, including CI/CD pipelines, creating tools for documentation and security, and Terraform code management. What's inside • Understand and write basic Terraform code • Avoid vendor lock-in with OpenTofu • Construct CI/CD pipelines • Develop and test Terraform modules About the reader For sysadmins, software developers, and cloud engineers famil- iar with the CLI. About the author Robert Hafner has led engineering efforts at numerous startups, including Malwarebytes, Vicarious AI, and Rad AI. He is currently a Distinguished Engineer at a Fortune 100 Telecom. Table of Contents Part 1 1 A brief overview of Terraform 2 Terraform HCL components 3 Terraform variables and modules 4 Expressions and iterations 5 The Terraform plan Part 2 6 State management 7 Code quality and continuous integration 8 Continuous delivery and deployment 9 Testing and refactoring Part 3 10 Advanced Terraform topics 11 Alternative interfaces 12 Terraform providers
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April 8, 2025“If you’re looking to get serious about Terraform, this is a must-read. It’s hands down one of the best resources out there for learning the ins and outs of infrastructure as code.”
The content is structured in a way that makes even advanced concepts feel approachable. It covers everything from setting up your first configuration to managing complex multi-environment deployments. The real-world examples are especially useful, giving you practical context instead of just theory.
Whether you’re just starting with Terraform or trying to sharpen your skills for production use, this guide delivers. It’s not just informative—it’s actionable. You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding and the confidence to apply it in real projects.
Highly recommended for DevOps engineers, SREs, or anyone working with cloud infrastructure.
The content is structured in a way that makes even advanced concepts feel approachable. It covers everything from setting up your first configuration to managing complex multi-environment deployments. The real-world examples are especially useful, giving you practical context instead of just theory.
Whether you’re just starting with Terraform or trying to sharpen your skills for production use, this guide delivers. It’s not just informative—it’s actionable. You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding and the confidence to apply it in real projects.
Highly recommended for DevOps engineers, SREs, or anyone working with cloud infrastructure.
April 10, 2025
Really easy to read book, very practical and with very nice charts that make very easy to understand the topics that the author is covering.
What I liked the most about the book is the number of exercises and the practical approach of it.
A really great book to learn Terraform, it have helped me in the tasks that I need to do in my work.
What I liked the most about the book is the number of exercises and the practical approach of it.
A really great book to learn Terraform, it have helped me in the tasks that I need to do in my work.
April 28, 2025
I've read several books about Terraform and I can't tell you that none of them go as deep as Terraform In Depth.
It's not only up to date to Terraform new versions, but it also approaches Tofu as well.
If you are a experience user or a new one, this book got you covered.
It's not only up to date to Terraform new versions, but it also approaches Tofu as well.
If you are a experience user or a new one, this book got you covered.
August 2, 2025
Good introduction into Terraform + a lot of useful information about productionalizing it.
1 star is off due to the problems with listings in epub version
1 star is off due to the problems with listings in epub version
April 9, 2025
Build strong Terraform/OpenTofu foundations, learn how to write production-grade Infrastructure as Code and also learn about advanced Terraform/OpenTofu concepts to extend them!
Terraform in Depth is a great book both if you are new to Terraform and to who is already familiar to it but would like to improve their knowledge on Terraform or extend it, for example by writing a Terrraform provider.
The book is divided in 3 parts.
In the 1st part Terraform is greatly explained from the ground-up. This help both to understand its architecture and concepts but also to greatly improve your debug-fu in case of problems.
The 2nd part focuses on writing production-grade Terraform code including testing techniques.
The 3rd part is on more advanced Terraform techniques and also shows how to write a Terraform provider from scratch.
This is also the first Terraform book that discusses about OpenTofu.
If you would like to learn Terraform or get better at it... I strongly suggest it!
Terraform in Depth is a great book both if you are new to Terraform and to who is already familiar to it but would like to improve their knowledge on Terraform or extend it, for example by writing a Terrraform provider.
The book is divided in 3 parts.
In the 1st part Terraform is greatly explained from the ground-up. This help both to understand its architecture and concepts but also to greatly improve your debug-fu in case of problems.
The 2nd part focuses on writing production-grade Terraform code including testing techniques.
The 3rd part is on more advanced Terraform techniques and also shows how to write a Terraform provider from scratch.
This is also the first Terraform book that discusses about OpenTofu.
If you would like to learn Terraform or get better at it... I strongly suggest it!
April 13, 2025
When I first received the early chapters of "Terraform in Depth" from Manning Publications Co. to review, I thought, "Please, not another book that talks about provisioning resources and calls it `in depth`😵💫".
However, with the author’s evolving vision and feedback from us the reviewers, the later chapters took a sharp, refreshing turn.
Chapters 7 through 12 dive deep into production-grade engineering practices: from enforcing code quality and CI/CD automation to testing, GitOps, secret management, and extending Terraform with custom providers and interfaces. These sections don’t just teach Terraform, they teach how to engineer infrastructure professionally at scale.
It's a good read and a rewarding journey for any Infrastructure Engineer willing to take their skills to the next level.
However, with the author’s evolving vision and feedback from us the reviewers, the later chapters took a sharp, refreshing turn.
Chapters 7 through 12 dive deep into production-grade engineering practices: from enforcing code quality and CI/CD automation to testing, GitOps, secret management, and extending Terraform with custom providers and interfaces. These sections don’t just teach Terraform, they teach how to engineer infrastructure professionally at scale.
It's a good read and a rewarding journey for any Infrastructure Engineer willing to take their skills to the next level.
April 15, 2025
Is rare to found a book that covers IaC as an entire productive project, but this book achieves the goal, it teaches you everything that you need to create and admin your cloud infraestructure in a serious way. From the basics (language and so on) to a complete CD workflow (and if you like, create your own providers), using the state of the art tools that you can need.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews