Terraform is an infrastructure as code tool created by HashiCorp that provisions and manages cloud and on-premises resources from declarative configuration files. You describe the infrastructure you want in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), and Terraform calculates and applies the changes needed to reach that state.
Teams use Terraform to create and change cloud resources such as networks, virtual machines, databases, Kubernetes clusters, DNS records and IAM roles. It works across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and hundreds of other platforms through providers.
The core workflow has three steps: terraform init downloads providers, terraform plan shows proposed changes, and terraform apply makes them. Terraform records what it manages in a state file.
HashiCorp created Terraform in 2014, and IBM acquired HashiCorp in 2025.
Steampunk Spotter governs Terraform plans before they’re applied. It checks provider compatibility, breaking configuration changes and supply chain risk at commit and in CI/CD.
