1. What Terraform Is (High-Level)

Terraform is an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tool that lets you define infrastructure (servers, networks, DNS, cloud services) in declarative configuration files, then create and manage that infrastructure automatically.

Key idea:

• You describe what you want, not how to build it
• Terraform figures out the execution steps

2. Core Architecture

Terraform has a simple but powerful internal model:

2.1 Components

1. Configuration (Desired State)

• Written in HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL)
• Defines resources, variables, outputs

2. State (Current Known State)

• Stored in a .tfstate file
• Tracks real infrastructure Terraform manages
• Maps config → real-world resources

3. Providers

• Plugins that interact with APIs
• Examples:
  • Amazon Web Services
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud Platform

4. Resources