Terraform Tutorial — Project 5: Multi-Environment

1 minute read

Deploy the same infrastructure to dev and prod using Terraform workspaces and environment-specific .tfvars files.

What You’ll Build

  • Workspace-based multi-environment deployment
  • Environment-specific sizing (instance types, counts)
  • Shared modules with different parameters per environment
  • Workspace-aware resource naming

Project Structure

project-5-multi-env/
├── main.tf
├── variables.tf
├── outputs.tf
├── environments/
│   ├── dev.tfvars
│   └── prod.tfvars
└── modules/
    └── vpc/

environments/dev.tfvars

instance_type  = "t3.micro"
instance_count = 1
vpc_cidr       = "10.0.0.0/16"
enable_nat     = false

environments/prod.tfvars

instance_type  = "t3.large"
instance_count = 3
vpc_cidr       = "10.1.0.0/16"
enable_nat     = true

main.tf

provider "aws" {
  region = var.region
}

module "vpc" {
  source             = "./modules/vpc"
  name               = "app-${terraform.workspace}"
  cidr_block         = var.vpc_cidr
  enable_nat_gateway = var.enable_nat

  tags = {
    Environment = terraform.workspace
  }
}

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  count         = var.instance_count
  ami           = data.aws_ami.amazon_linux.id
  instance_type = var.instance_type
  subnet_id     = module.vpc.public_subnet_ids[count.index % length(module.vpc.public_subnet_ids)]

  tags = {
    Name        = "web-${terraform.workspace}-${count.index + 1}"
    Environment = terraform.workspace
  }
}

Deployment Workflow

# Create workspaces
$ terraform workspace new dev
$ terraform workspace new prod

# Deploy dev
$ terraform workspace select dev
$ terraform apply -var-file="environments/dev.tfvars"

# Deploy prod
$ terraform workspace select prod
$ terraform apply -var-file="environments/prod.tfvars"

# Verify
$ terraform workspace select dev
$ terraform output

$ terraform workspace select prod
$ terraform output

Clean Up

$ terraform workspace select dev
$ terraform destroy -var-file="environments/dev.tfvars"

$ terraform workspace select prod
$ terraform destroy -var-file="environments/prod.tfvars"

← Project 4: Module Refactor Practice Exercises →

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