Terraform Advanced — Directory per Environment

Each environment gets its own directory, its own state file, and its own terraform apply.

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The Structure

infra-live/
├── modules/                   # Shared module source
│   ├── vpc/
│   ├── eks/
│   └── rds/
├── dev/
│   ├── main.tf               # module "vpc" { source = "../modules/vpc" }
│   ├── variables.tf
│   └── terraform.tfvars       # dev-specific values
├── staging/
│   ├── main.tf
│   ├── variables.tf
│   └── terraform.tfvars
└── prod/
    ├── main.tf
    ├── variables.tf
    └── terraform.tfvars

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Benefits

• Explicit: cd prod && terraform plan — you know exactly what you’re changing
• Isolated: Dev state can never accidentally touch prod
• Reviewable: PR diffs show exactly which environment is affected
• Different configs: Prod can have resources that dev doesn’t (e.g., WAF, CloudWatch alarms)

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Drawbacks

• Code duplication: Each environment copies main.tf (mitigated by shared modules)
• Drift between environments: Adding a resource in prod but forgetting staging
• More directories: Repo grows linearly with environments

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What’s Next?

Learn the workspace pattern.

← Workspaces vs Directories Workspace Patterns →