terraformer
A CLI tool that generates Terraform configuration and state files from existing infrastructure (reverse Terraform).
What is terraformer?
Terraformer is a CLI tool that generates Terraform configuration and state files from existing infrastructure, effectively performing 'reverse Terraform'. It connects to cloud providers and services, enumerates resources, and produces the necessary HCL/JSON and tfstate files to bring those resources under Terraform management. This solves the problem of manually writing Terraform code for pre-existing infrastructure, accelerating infrastructure-as-code adoption.
DevOps engineers, SREs, and cloud platform teams managing infrastructure with Terraform who need to import existing resources or migrate from manual/other IaC tools.
Developers choose Terraformer for its extensive provider support, accurate state generation, and the ability to filter and plan imports, which significantly reduces the time and risk of manually recreating Terraform configurations for live environments.
Overview
CLI tool to generate terraform files from existing infrastructure (reverse Terraform). Infrastructure to Code
Use Cases
Best For
- Importing existing cloud resources into Terraform management
- Migrating infrastructure from manual setup or other IaC tools to Terraform
- Generating Terraform code for complex multi-service environments
- Creating baseline configurations for disaster recovery or environment replication
- Auditing and documenting live infrastructure as code
- Onboarding new team members with executable infrastructure definitions
Not Ideal For
- Teams starting new projects that require long-term tool support and active maintenance
- Environments where security updates or compatibility with the latest Terraform versions is critical
- Users needing reliable support for specific providers like Cloudflare, which is broken in Terraformer
- Projects integrated into CI/CD pipelines that depend on regularly updated tools for automation
Pros & Cons
Pros
Supports over 40 providers including AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, and niche services like GitHub and Datadog, leveraging Terraform's own providers for accurate resource mapping.
Generates both HCL/JSON configuration files and matching tfstate files in one pass, ensuring Terraform can manage imported resources without configuration drift.
Allows precise import control with flags to filter by ID, type, or attributes, and includes a planning workflow to review changes before execution, as detailed in the filtering section.
Uses existing Terraform providers for resource definitions, so updates to providers automatically enhance Terraformer's capabilities without tool modifications.
Cons
The project is archived as of March 2026 with no updates, security patches, or support, making it risky for any ongoing or new infrastructure work.
Some providers like Cloudflare are explicitly marked as broken in the docs, and others may be outdated due to the deprecation, limiting usability.
Requires separate installation of Terraformer binaries and manual initialization of Terraform providers in a working directory, adding steps compared to integrated solutions.
Since it relies on Terraform providers, changes in provider APIs or Terraform versions post-deprecation could render generated configurations invalid without fixes.
Frequently Asked Questions
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