Terraform Testing: Validate, Plan, and Automate Infra Confidence

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1. terraform validate: Syntax & Configuration Checks

terraform validate

This checks:

• Syntax errors

• Provider versions

• Resource config validity

• Module structure

✅ Lightweight and fast
 ❌ Doesn’t check if infra will succeed or fail

2. terraform fmt & check Mode: Formatting as QA

terraform fmt -check

Checks whether your code is formatted properly — useful in CI:

• Consistent indentation

• HCL structure

• Clean diffs

• Reduced review friction

✅ Combine with GitHub Actions or pre-commit hooks

3. terraform plan for Behavioral Testing (With Diffs)

terraform plan -detailed-exitcode

This flag returns:

• 0 = no changes

• 1 = error

• 2 = plan has changes

Use this to detect drift or uncommitted changes in pipelines.

4. Policy-as-Code: Terraform + OPA/Sentinel

To enforce guardrails like:

• No open security groups

• No unencrypted volumes

• Tagging standards

Use:

• OPA + Conftest

• HashiCorp Sentinel (for Terraform Cloud)

✅ Shift security left
 ✅ Apply org-wide policies
 ❌ Requires integration + training

5. Terraform Unit Testing with tftest or kitchen-terraform

Frameworks like tftest allow you to write Python tests for Terraform modules:

def test_output():
    tf = tftest.TerraformTest()
    tf.setup()
    result = tf.output('vpc_id')
    assert result.startswith('vpc-')

6. Infrastructure Testing with Terratest (Go)

Terratest is a powerful tool for end-to-end testing of infrastructure:

terraformOptions := &terraform.Options{
  TerraformDir: "../examples/aws",
}

terraform.InitAndApply(t, terraformOptions)
assert.True(t, ssh.CheckSshConnection(t, ssh.Host{ ... }))

✅ Spin up infra, test it, destroy it
✅ Perfect for testing modules before reuse
❌ Heavier setup (Go + SDKs)

7. Checkov for Static Code Analysis

Checkov is a Python-based tool to scan Terraform code for misconfigurations:

checkov -d .

Finds:

• Open ports

• Missing encryption

• IAM misconfigurations

• Violated best practices

✅ Plug into pipelines
✅ Pre-apply security scanning
✅ Maintained open-source with frequent rules

💡 Tip of the Day:

📚 Resources & References

1️⃣ Terraform Validate CLI Docs
🔗 Docs

2️⃣ Terratest Framework (Go)
🔗 GitHub

3️⃣ Checkov by Bridgecrew
🔗 Checkov

4️⃣ OPA for Terraform Policy Checks
🔗 Open Policy Agent

5️⃣ Terraform Plan Exit Codes for CI/CD
🔗 HashiCorp Docs

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