5 Quick Videos To Help You Build a Terraform Provider

Watch 5 brief videos that go beyond the basics in explaining how to build an excellent HashiCorp Terraform provider.

When you're preparing to build a Terraform provider, your first stop should be HashiCorp Learn and the custom provider documentation. After that, these five recent video sessions are great resources to help fill out your knowledge of Terraform providers.

This first talk is a tour of the latest changes in Terraform plugin development directly from a member of the HashiCorp Terraform Plugin SDK team. It also includes an introduction to a new way to build Terraform providers and a glimpse into the future of Terraform plugin development.

»A Modern Terraform Plugin Framework

»A Tour of Terraform's Type System For Provider Developers

Next, get an 8-minute tour of Terraform's type system — from a provider developer's point of view — by Paddy Carver, the engineering lead for the Terraform plugin SDK.

»Terraform-Friendly API Design

Paddy is back with another short video showing how to design an API to make building a Terraform provider for it as simple as possible.

»Terraform Plugin Protocol v6: What is a Block, Even?

Get a deep look into enhanced modeling of complex attributes in Terraform plugin development with Terraform core developer Kristin Laemmert, who will dive into the Terraform plugin protocol v6. The plugin protocol is the wire format used to communicate between Terraform and providers. Recently, v6 introduced a new method for describing complex object attributes inside a Resource. Get an overview of this new NestedType field in Attributes, then see what these Attributes look like in configuration and how they were implemented in the protocol. Eventually, they will replace NestedBlocks.

»Getting into Terraform Provider Development ... and Getting Carried Away

Finally, have some exploratory fun building a Terraform provider with two engineers who have made hundreds of contributions to multiple providers.