terraform/website/source/docs/commands/init.html.markdown

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docs	Command: init	docs-commands-init	The `terraform init` command is used to initialize a Terraform configuration. This is the first command that should be run for any new or existing Terraform configuration. It is safe to run this command multiple times.

Command: init

The terraform init command is used to initialize a Terraform configuration. This is the first command that should be run for any new or existing Terraform configuration. It is safe to run this command multiple times.

Usage

Usage: terraform init [options] [SOURCE] [PATH]

Initialize a new or existing Terraform environment by creating initial files, loading any remote state, downloading modules, etc.

This is the first command that should be run for any new or existing Terraform configuration per machine. This sets up all the local data necessary to run Terraform that is typically not comitted to version control.

This command is always safe to run multiple times. Though subsequent runs may give errors, this command will never blow away your environment or state. Even so, if you have important information, please back it up prior to running this command just in case.

If no arguments are given, the configuration in this working directory is initialized.

If one or two arguments are given, the first is a SOURCE of a module to download to the second argument PATH. After downloading the module to PATH, the configuration will be initialized as if this command were called pointing only to that PATH. PATH must be empty of any Terraform files. Any conflicting non-Terraform files will be overwritten. The module download is a copy. If you're downloading a module from Git, it will not preserve Git history.

The command-line flags are all optional. The list of available flags are:

• -backend=true - Initialize the backend for this environment.

• -backend-config=value - Value can be a path to an HCL file or a string in the format of 'key=value'. This specifies additional configuration to merge for the backend. This can be specified multiple times. Flags specified later in the line override those specified earlier if they conflict.

• -get=true - Download any modules for this configuration.

• -input=true - Ask for input interactively if necessary. If this is false and input is required, init will error.

Backend Config File

The -backend-config can take a path to specify additional backend configuration when initialize a backend.

This is particularly useful for partial configuration of backends. Partial configuration lets you keep sensitive information out of your Terraform configuration.

The backend configuration file is a basic HCL file with key/value pairs. The keys are configuration keys for your backend. You do not need to wrap it in a terraform block. For example, the following file is a valid backend configuration file for the Consul backend type:

address = "demo.consul.io"
path    = "newpath"

This format can be mixed with the key/value format documented below. In this case, the values will be merged by key.

Backend Config Key/Value

The -backend-config will also accept key=value pairs to specify configuration directly on the command line.

This is particularly useful for partial configuration of backends. Partial configuration lets you keep sensitive information out of your Terraform configuration.

The format of this flag is identical to the -var flag for plan, apply, etc. but applies to configuration keys for backends. For example:

$ terraform init \
  -backend-config 'address=demo.consul.io' \
  -backend-config 'path=newpath'

This format can be mixed with the file format documented above. In this case, the values will be merged by key.