Terraform Advanced — Publishing to the Registry

Publish reusable modules to the public or private Terraform Registry.

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GitHub Naming Convention

The Terraform Registry requires this exact naming pattern:

terraform-<PROVIDER>-<NAME>

Examples:
  terraform-aws-vpc
  terraform-aws-eks
  terraform-google-network
  terraform-azurerm-vnet

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Required Repository Structure

terraform-aws-vpc/
├── main.tf              # Core resources
├── variables.tf         # Input variables
├── outputs.tf           # Output values
├── versions.tf          # Required providers
├── README.md            # Auto-generated docs
├── examples/            # Usage examples
│   └── complete/
│       └── main.tf
└── modules/             # Sub-modules (optional)
    └── subnets/

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Auto-Generated Documentation

Use terraform-docs to generate README.md:

$ brew install terraform-docs

$ terraform-docs markdown table . > README.md

Output:

## Inputs
| Name | Description | Type | Default | Required |
|------|-------------|------|---------|----------|
| name | VPC name    | string | n/a   | yes      |
| cidr | CIDR block  | string | "10.0.0.0/16" | no |

## Outputs
| Name | Description |
|------|-------------|
| vpc_id | The VPC ID |

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Publishing Steps

1. Push repo to GitHub with terraform-<provider>-<name> naming
2. Create a Git tag: git tag v1.0.0 && git push origin v1.0.0
3. Sign in to registry.terraform.io with GitHub
4. Click “Publish” → Select your repository
5. The registry auto-detects versions from Git tags

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What’s Next?

Choose between monorepo and polyrepo for modules.

← Module Versioning Monorepo vs Polyrepo →