digger
An open-source IaC orchestration tool that runs Terraform/OpenTofu directly in your existing CI pipeline.
What is digger?
Digger is an open-source Infrastructure as Code (IaC) orchestration tool that enables teams to run Terraform and OpenTofu directly within their existing CI/CD pipelines. It solves the complexity of managing separate CI systems for infrastructure by leveraging your current compute and orchestration infrastructure, providing a secure and cost-effective alternative to specialized TACOs (Terraform Automation and Collaboration Software).
DevOps engineers, platform teams, and infrastructure developers who manage Terraform/OpenTofu in collaborative environments and want to avoid maintaining separate CI systems.
Developers choose Digger because it eliminates the need for duplicate CI infrastructure, keeps cloud secrets within their existing CI environment for enhanced security, and offers unlimited runs and resources without vendor lock-in, all while providing robust features like PR automation, drift detection, and OPA-based policies.
Overview
Digger is an open source IaC orchestration tool. Digger allows you to run IaC in your existing CI pipeline ⚡️
Use Cases
Best For
- Running Terraform plans and applies directly from pull request comments
- Teams wanting to avoid maintaining separate CI systems like Atlantis
- Organizations requiring RBAC and policy enforcement via Open Policy Agent
- Preventing race conditions in infrastructure changes across multiple PRs
- Detecting and managing infrastructure drift automatically
- Self-hosting IaC orchestration to keep secrets within your own environment
Not Ideal For
- Organizations without an existing CI/CD pipeline who would need to set up both CI and Digger concurrently
- Teams seeking a completely hands-off, vendor-managed Terraform automation service with minimal operational overhead
- Projects using IaC tools other than Terraform or OpenTofu, as Digger is specifically designed for these
- Environments where CI jobs are heavily rate-limited or lack parallel execution capabilities, as Digger leverages CI compute
Pros & Cons
Pros
Leverages your existing CI's compute and orchestration, eliminating the need for separate runners and reducing costs, as highlighted in the README's philosophy of avoiding duplicate CI stacks.
Keeps cloud access secrets within your CI environment, preventing third-party exposure, which is a core security benefit emphasized over tools like Terraform Cloud.
Displays Terraform plan and apply results directly in PR comments and provides PR-level locks to prevent race conditions, a key feature for collaborative workflows as detailed in the features list.
Supports Open Policy Agent for RBAC and policy enforcement, offering granular control over infrastructure changes, which is a stated advantage over alternatives like Atlantis.
Cons
Requires configuring the Digger orchestrator backend and integrating with CI, which can be complex compared to plug-and-play TACOs, and self-hosting adds operational burden, as acknowledged in the self-hosting docs.
Digger's performance and scalability are tied to your CI system; if your CI has constraints like poor parallelism or reliability, Digger inherits them, limiting flexibility in resource-intensive scenarios.
The recent rebranding to OpenTaco indicates ongoing changes, which might lead to instability or breaking changes as the project matures, as noted in the README's heads-up section.
Open Source Alternative To
digger is an open-source alternative to the following products:
Spacelift is an infrastructure as code management platform that provides policy-as-code, workflow automation, and collaboration features for Terraform, CloudFormation, and other IaC tools.
Terraform Cloud is HashiCorp's managed service for Terraform that provides collaboration, governance, and workflow automation features for infrastructure management.
Atlantis is a self-hosted web application for automating Terraform workflows via pull requests, enabling collaboration and infrastructure management.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
TerrateamTerraform without the state file bottleneck
terrakubeOpen source IaC Automation and Collaboration Software.
tofutfAn open source alternative to terraform enterprise.
StategraphState backend that eliminates the state file bottleneck. Teams plan in parallel with resource-level locking, and state is queryable via SQL
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