Course Introduction

Welcome to the HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate Preparation article. In this guide, you'll learn the fundamental concepts and practical skills needed to succeed in the Terraform Associate exam.

My name is Vijin Palazhi, and I'll be your instructor throughout this article.

If you're already comfortable with these prerequisites, feel free to skip the introductory section and dive directly into the content.

Exam Objectives Overview

The content in this article is tailored to match the objectives of the HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate exam. Key topics include:

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Understand the IaC concept at a high level, compare popular IaC tools, and explore the core Terraform workflow.
• Terraform Providers: Learn about provider plugins, using multiple providers, version constraints, and aliases.
• Variables and Resources: Gain insights into input/output variables, resource attributes, dependencies, resource targeting, and data sources.
• Terraform State: Understand the significance of Terraform state, including managing local state and migrating to remote backends like S3.
• Terraform Fundamentals: Master reading, generating, and updating Terraform configurations. Topics include using loops (count, for_each), provisioners, built-in functions, operators, conditional expressions, local values, and dynamic blocks.
• Terraform CLI and Workspaces: Get acquainted with common CLI commands, lifecycle rules, resource states, logging, debugging, input parameters, and an introduction to Terraform workspaces.
• Terraform Modules: Discover why modules are essential, learn how to integrate modules from the Terraform Registry, and create your own modules complete with input and output variables.
• Terraform Cloud: Explore how Terraform Cloud supports collaborative infrastructure management, including account setup, organization and workspace creation, integration with version control systems, upgrading to Teams and governance plans, and a brief overview of the Sentinel policy-as-code framework.

Each section of this guide is accompanied by multiple-choice quizzes to test your knowledge and solidify your understanding. These quizzes are graded, and you'll receive instant feedback on any incorrect answers. Please note that the quiz interface here might differ from the actual exam layout.

Sample Terraform Configuration

Below is an example Terraform configuration written in HCL to create a local file resource:

resource "local_file" "games" {
  file    = "/root/favourite-games"
  content = "FIFA 21"
}

That concludes our introductory overview of the course. I'm excited to embark on this learning journey with you—let's dive in and explore the first lecture!