📄️ Table of contents
Free discovery course on Terraform in 7 pedagogical lessons. Understand Infrastructure as Code, the HCL syntax, the write/plan/apply cycle, providers, the state file, the ecosystem and the OpenTofu alternative that appeared after the 2023 licence change.
📄️ 1 · The problem Terraform solves
Before Terraform, creating cloud infrastructure by hand in the AWS or GCP console was a nightmare: impossible to reproduce, unverifiable, with no history. This lesson details precisely the problem Terraform came to solve.
📄️ 2 · What is Terraform?
Rigorous definition of Terraform: an Infrastructure as Code engine, the HCL language, an ecosystem and a HashiCorp product. History from Mitchell Hashimoto in 2014, the BSL licence change in 2023, the IBM acquisition in 2024 and the OpenTofu fork.
📄️ 3 · HCL, plan, apply
Understand Terraform's write/plan/apply cycle and the HCL syntax. Real .tf file example commented line by line, difference between declarative and imperative, why terraform plan is essential.
📄️ 4 · Providers, resources, modules
Understand Terraform's three fundamental building blocks: providers (the bridge to each cloud), resources (the infrastructure bricks), modules (reusable code). Data sources, Terraform Registry, concrete examples.
📄️ 5 · The state file
Understand why Terraform needs a state file, what it contains, why it must be stored in a remote backend (S3, GCS, Azure Blob) with locking (DynamoDB), and how to handle drift.
📄️ 6 · Ecosystem and alternatives
Complete overview of the Terraform ecosystem: Terraform Cloud, Terragrunt, Atlantis, tflint, Checkov, OpenTofu and an honest comparison with Pulumi, AWS CloudFormation, Azure Bicep and CDK. How to choose in 2026.
📄️ 7 · Real use cases + FAQ
Where Terraform is really used in 2026: multi-region cloud provisioning, Kubernetes, disaster recovery, ephemeral environments, SaaS. Summary and answers to the 14 most frequent beginner questions.
📄️ 🏆 Quiz and attestation
Test your Terraform knowledge with a free 5-question quiz, corrected and explained: plan, state file, providers, OpenTofu, declarative approach.