terraform/website/docs/import/index.html.md

layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	Import	docs-import	Terraform is able to import existing infrastructure. This allows you take resources you've created by some other means and bring it under Terraform management.

Import

For a hands-on tutorial, try the Import Terraform Configuration guide on HashiCorp Learn.

Terraform is able to import existing infrastructure. This allows you take resources you've created by some other means and bring it under Terraform management.

This is a great way to slowly transition infrastructure to Terraform, or to be able to be confident that you can use Terraform in the future if it potentially doesn't support every feature you need today.

~> Warning: Terraform expects that each remote object it is managing will be bound to only one resource address, which is normally guaranteed by Terraform itself having created all objects. If you import existing objects into Terraform, be careful to import each remote object to only one Terraform resource address. If you import the same object multiple times, Terraform may exhibit unwanted behavior. For more information on this assumption, see the State section.

Currently State Only

The current implementation of Terraform import can only import resources into the state. It does not generate configuration. A future version of Terraform will also generate configuration.

Because of this, prior to running terraform import it is necessary to write manually a resource configuration block for the resource, to which the imported object will be mapped.

While this may seem tedious, it still gives Terraform users an avenue for importing existing resources.

Remote Backends

When using Terraform import on the command line with a remote backend, such as Terraform Cloud, the import command runs locally, unlike commands such as apply, which run inside your Terraform Cloud environment. Because of this, the import command will not have access to information from the remote backend, such as workspace variables.

In order to use Terraform import with a remote state backend, you may need to set local variables equivalent to the remote workspace variables.

Hands-On Tutorial

You can follow the Terraform Import tutorial on HashiCorp learn for a hands-on introduction to using the terraform import command.