Importing existing infrastructure into Terraform state

Bring click-ops resources under Terraform with import blocks and generated config — without recreating them.

Every team has infrastructure that was clicked into existence before Terraform. You do not have to recreate it — import brings existing resources under management by writing them into state. Since Terraform 1.5, import blocks even generate the starting config for you.

Declare what to import

import {
  to = aws_s3_bucket.logs
  id = "acme-app-logs"     # the real resource identifier
}

Generate the config

The pre-1.5 way

# write the resource block by hand first, then:
terraform import aws_s3_bucket.logs acme-app-logs

Whichever path you take, the goal is the same: a clean terraform plan with no changes afterwards. That is proof state matches reality.

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