This new option is intended to address the previous inconsistencies where
some older subcommands supported partially changing the target directory
(where Terraform would use the new directory inconsistently) where newer
commands did not support that override at all.
Instead, now Terraform will accept a -chdir command at the start of the
command line (before the subcommand) and will interpret it as a request
to direct all actions that would normally be taken in the current working
directory into the target directory instead. This is similar to options
offered by some other similar tools, such as the -C option in "make".
The new option is only accepted at the start of the command line (before
the subcommand) as a way to reflect that it is a global command (not
specific to a particular subcommand) and that it takes effect _before_
executing the subcommand. This also means it'll be forced to appear before
any other command-specific arguments that take file paths, which hopefully
communicates that those other arguments are interpreted relative to the
overridden path.
As a measure of pragmatism for existing uses, the path.cwd object in
the Terraform language will continue to return the _original_ working
directory (ignoring -chdir), in case that is important in some exceptional
workflows. The path.root object gives the root module directory, which
will always match the overriden working directory unless the user
simultaneously uses one of the legacy directory override arguments, which
is not a pattern we intend to support in the long run.
As a first step down the deprecation path, this commit adjusts the
documentation to de-emphasize the inconsistent old command line arguments,
including specific guidance on what to use instead for the main three
workflow commands, but all of those options remain supported in the same
way as they were before. In a later commit we'll make those arguments
produce a visible deprecation warning in Terraform's output, and then
in an even later commit we'll remove them entirely so that -chdir is the
single supported way to run Terraform from a directory other than the
one containing the root module configuration.
This document now lives at:
- https://learn.hashicorp.com/terraform/development/running-terraform-in-automation
...and terraform.io has been redirecting to there for quite a while. This commit
removes the extra copy so that the text of the two versions doesn't drift, and
updates existing links to point to the new location.
...and one other reference to the application data directory.
Context:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/shell/knownfolderid#folderid_roamingappdata
In newer Windows versions, the folder accessible as `%APPDATA%` (and via various
APIs) is actually at something like "documents and settings\user\application
data\roaming", while earlier versions omit the "\roaming" part of the path. This
means you can confuse people by referring to the "application data" directory by
its human name, because "roaming" is the real application data directory, but it
looks like a subdirectory of "application data".
Thus, it's less confusing to just use the `%APPDATA%` variable, with the added
benefit that you can copy and paste the path and it'll just work in most places.
website: Reconcile docs about plugin discovery and downloading
I'm attempting to keep things simple for normal users while making sure we've
got the full behavior written down somewhere for plugin developers.
This commit doesn't stand alone; it's paired with a commit in the
terraform-website repo, to deal with some related content in the "extend"
section.
The docs did not mention that it is possible to provide overrides for specific
plugins by placing them into a `terraform.d/plugins/os_arch/` directory inside
the working dir.
Closes#15727.
This restores the earlier behavior of the first positional argument to
terraform init in 0.9, but as a command line option.
The positional argument was removed to improve consistency with other
commands that take a working directory as their first positional argument.
It was originally intended that this functionality would return in a
later release along with some other general improvements to Terraform's
module handling, but we're introducing here an interim solution that
uses the existing module source concept, to allow for easier porting of
workflows that previously depended on the automatic copy behavior.
In a future release this feature may change again as the module
improvements design firms up, but we expect it to be broadly compatible
with this temporary state.
The "terraform init" command has a lot of different functionality now,
making it hard to follow all of the options in the previous presentation.
Instead, here we describe each of the steps and its associated options
separately, hopefully making it easier to understand what each option
relates to.
In addition, much of the detail around backend partial configuration is
factored out into the backend configuration page, where it seems more
"at home"; previously it felt hard to follow exactly how partial
configuration would be used, due to the information on it being split over
two different pages.
Martin Atkins