Infrastructure as Code

Provision and manage cloud infrastructure using code-based automation tools. This skill covers tool selection, state management, module design, and operational patterns across Terraform/OpenTofu, Pulumi, and AWS CDK.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• Provisioning cloud infrastructure (compute, networking, databases, storage)
• Migrating from manual infrastructure to code-based workflows
• Designing reusable infrastructure modules
• Implementing multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud deployments
• Establishing state management and drift detection patterns
• Integrating infrastructure provisioning into CI/CD pipelines
• Evaluating IaC tools (Terraform vs Pulumi vs CDK)

Common requests:

• "Create a Terraform module for VPC provisioning"
• "Set up remote state with locking for team collaboration"
• "Compare Pulumi vs Terraform for our use case"
• "Design composable infrastructure modules"
• "Implement drift detection for existing infrastructure"

Core Concepts

Infrastructure as Code Fundamentals

Key Principles:

1. Declarative vs Imperative - Describe desired state (Terraform) or program infrastructure (Pulumi)
2. Idempotency - Same input produces same output, safe to re-run
3. Version Control - Infrastructure changes tracked in Git
4. State Management - Track actual infrastructure state
5. Module Composition - Reusable, versioned infrastructure components

Benefits:

• Reproducibility (same code = same infrastructure)
• Auditability (Git history shows all changes)
• Collaboration (code reviews for infrastructure changes)
• Automation (CI/CD deploys infrastructure)
• Disaster recovery (rebuild from code)

Tool Selection Framework

Choose IaC tools based on team composition and cloud strategy: