hashicorp-certified-terraform-associate is 50 Terraform demos

A course curriculum in directory form

hashicorp-certified-terraform-associate is the code repository for a course titled HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate - 50 Practical Demos, and the repository is organised as the course is, not as a library.

The README lists the fifty topics in order, and the list is the fastest way to understand what the repository contains:

01. Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
02. Install Tools on MacOs, LinuxOS and WindowsOS
03. Command Basics
04. Language Syntax
05. Settings Block
06. Providers Block
07. Multiple Providers usage
08. Dependency Lock File Importance
09. Resources Syntax and Behavior
10. Resources Meta-Argument - depends_on
11. Resources Meta-Argument - count
12. Resources Meta-Argument - for_each
13. Resources Meta-Argument - lifecycle
14. Input Variables - Basics
15. Input Variables - Assign When Prompted

The sequence moves from the conceptual to the mechanical. Infrastructure as code first, then installing the tools, then the command line and the language syntax, then the settings block and the providers block, then the resource behaviour and the four meta-arguments, and then the input variables. From there it moves outward to the things that sit around a configuration: state, workspaces, provisioners, modules, Terraform Cloud, and finally the graph, functions, dynamic expressions and dynamic blocks.

That ordering is the pedagogical argument of the course. A person who can list the resource types has not learned anything useful, so the early modules are about how Terraform thinks, and the later ones are about the operations that surround a configuration.

The actual directories follow the same idea at a coarser grain, with 01-Infrastructure-as-Code-IaC-Basics, 02-Terraform-Basics, 03-Terraform-Fundamental-Blocks, 04-Terraform-Resources, 05-Terraform-Variables, 06-Terraform-Datasources, 07-Terraform-State, 08-Terraform-Workspaces, 09-Terraform-Provisioners, 10-Terraform-Modules, 11-Terraform-Cloud-and-Enterprise-Capabilities, 12-Terraform-Cloud-and-Sentinel, 13-Terraform-State-Import, 14-Terraform-Graph, 15-Terraform-Expressions, 16-Terraform-Debug, 17-Exam-Preparation and 18-Exam-Registration. The primary language of the repository is recorded as HCL, which is what you would expect.

The parts of Terraform that trip people up, in order

The topic list is a good map of where the difficulty in Terraform actually lies, and a few clusters are worth calling out because they are where most candidates lose marks.

The variables block runs from module 14 to module 24, which is ten consecutive topics on one subject: input variable basics, assigning when prompted, overriding a default with a CLI variable, overriding with environment variables, assigning with terraform.tfvars, assigning with a tfvars var-file argument, assigning with auto tfvars, then lists, maps, validation rules and sensitive input variables. The README makes a point of this by saying you will learn each and every way, 10 types, you can implement the Terraform Input Variables.

Ten modules on variable assignment is a statement about the exam, and about Terraform. The precedence order between a default, a var-file, an auto-loaded tfvars file, an environment variable and a CLI flag is genuinely hard to hold in your head, and it is a common source of the failure where a plan does not do what the operator expected. The sensitive variables topic, at 24, sits right after the validation rules, which is the right place for it, because marking a variable sensitive is only meaningful once you understand where its value comes from.

The provisioner block is shorter but covers three flavours. File Provisioner, local-exec Provisioner and remote-exec Provisioner are modules 33, 34 and 35, and the Null Resource at 36 is what they attach to. That ordering is deliberate: a provisioner without a resource to hang it on is nothing, and the null resource is the standard way to give one something to attach to.

The meta-arguments get four modules of their own, from depends_on through count and for_each to lifecycle, and the README says you will learn to write and understand Terraform Resource Behavior in combination with all the Meta-Arguments. Resource behaviour is the part people get wrong: what Terraform will create, replace or update in place when an attribute changes is a per-resource-type rule, and the meta-arguments change how many instances exist and what order they are built in.

State, backends and workspaces

Four topics cover state, and they cover it from both ends.

Backends - Remote State Storage is module 29, State Commands is 30, and then CLI Workspaces with local backend and CLI Workspaces with remote backend are 31 and 32. Later, module 46 is State Import and module 42 is Migrate State to Terraform Cloud, and module 30's own companion is the State Import directory in the repository.

State is where Terraform's real complexity lives, because it is a shared mutable file that records what exists in the world and lets Terraform compute a plan against it. The topics cover where it is stored, how to move it, how to read it, how to import pre-existing resources into it, and how workspaces relate to it.

The two workspace modules are the pair that most directly maps to the certification, because local backend workspaces and remote backend workspaces behave differently and the exam asks about the difference. The README states you will learn and implement Terraform CLI based workspaces, and the module titles distinguish them explicitly, which suggests the demos run against both a local directory and a remote backend.

The repository layout puts state in 07-Terraform-State and workspaces in 08-Terraform-Workspaces, which matches the ordering of the modules and suggests the two topics are worked through in sequence with the state topic as the foundation.

Terraform Cloud, modules and Sentinel

The later modules cover the parts of Terraform that only exist outside a local configuration.

Modules 37 and 38 are Modules from Public Registry and Build Local Module, and module 41 is Terraform Cloud - Share modules in private module registry. Together with the README's promise to implement Terraform Modules with all 3 types, that gives the three module sources: a public registry module, a local module you write yourself, and a private registry module hosted on Terraform Cloud.

The two Terraform Cloud workflow modules, 39 and 40, are VCS-Driven Worflow and CLI-Driven Worflow, and the spelling of Worflow in the README is the project's own typo, repeated. These are the two ways to run Terraform from a hosted service rather than from a laptop, and they differ in where the configuration lives and who triggers the run. Module 42, Migrate State to Terraform Cloud, follows, and module 43 starts the Sentinel topic with Basic Sentinel Policies, followed by Cost Control Sentinel Policies and CIS Sentinel Policies.

The three Sentinel topics are a sensible cluster because they share a mechanism and differ in policy content. Sentinel is Terraform Cloud's policy-as-code feature, so the cost control and CIS policies are examples of the same machinery applied to a budget concern and a security baseline. Note the constraint: Sentinel is a Terraform Cloud feature, so these demos need a Terraform Cloud account, which is also true of the private registry and the VCS-driven workflow modules.

The README describes the outcome as learning about sentinel policies and implementing 3 types of sentinel policies, and the repository directory 12-Terraform-Cloud-and-Sentinel groups the topic accordingly.

The requirement that shapes the whole course

There is one prerequisite in the README, and it is not a software one: you must have an AWS Cloud account to follow with me for hands-on activities.

Everything else is explicitly not required. You don't need to have any basic knowledge of Terraform, because the course will get started from very very basics of Terraform and take you to very advanced levels.

That combination is worth pausing on, because it tells you what kind of resource this repository is. It is not a set of snippets you can read. The demos are meant to be applied, and applying them costs money, because the providers in these configurations create AWS resources and the state files track them.

The target audience is stated as infrastructure architects, sysadmins or developers who are planning to master Terraform, any beginner interested in learning IaC, and anyone who wants to learn Terraform from a practical perspective.

There is also a note about the other repositories the course uses, which is easy to miss because it is buried in the list. The README links a Terraform Cloud Demo repository, a Terraform Private Module Registry repository, a Terraform Sentinel Policies repository and a course PPT Presentation directory, and then tells you to go to these repositories and FORK these repositories and make use of them during the course. So the demo code is spread across four repositories, and forking is part of the workflow rather than an optional extra.

Where the official study pages fit

The README points at HashiCorp's own pages, and that list is the part of the page most directly useful to somebody deciding whether this repository is worth their time.

The links are the Certification Curriculum at hashicorp.com/certification/terraform-associate, the Certification Preparation collection on learn.hashicorp.com, the Study Guide, the Exam Review Guide and Sample Questions. All of them are on learn.hashicorp.com under the terraform/certification collection, and the exam review guide and sample questions are exactly what a candidate would want next to a set of demos.

The value of the repository is therefore relative to the official curriculum. HashiCorp publishes the curriculum and the study guide, and this repository supplies the worked examples for each area of it. If a topic on the curriculum does not appear in the fifty modules, that is the gap to notice. If it appears at module 41, you have a runnable example for it.

The course is a paid one. The README describes what each course comes with, including a 30 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee, and lists the author's other courses including the AWS EKS Kubernetes Masterclass, the Azure Kubernetes Service with Azure DevOps and Terraform course, and an Azure version of the Terraform Associate course with 70 demos. The instructor is Kalyan Reddy Daida of StackSimplify, and the homepage given in the repository metadata is stacksimplify.com.

The licence field on the repository is not filled in, which is worth noting for anyone reusing the configuration code. The repository contains a LICENSE file, but the GitHub licence metadata is empty, so the terms are not stated in the usual place.

Editorial conclusion

The hashicorp-certified-terraform-associate repository suits someone preparing for the Terraform Associate exam who wants runnable examples for each topic rather than a reading list, since the fifty numbered topics map onto the certification areas and the sibling repositories carry the Terraform Cloud, Sentinel and private registry material. It is the wrong tool if you want a production Terraform module to copy, because the code is arranged for teaching and the README asks you to fork it, and it is the wrong tool if you have no AWS account, since the course states that as a requirement. Before you start, work through the module list against the official certification curriculum linked in the README, and set a Terraform Cloud account aside for the modules that need one.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. Project website
3. README
4. stacksimplify/hashicorp-certified-terraform-associate on GitHub