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Erik Lindqvist

@erik_lindqvist • 8 months ago

Terraform Reviews Are A Great LLM Use Case

Ask what the plan destroys, not whether the config is correct.

devops
terraform
infrastructure
code-review
Keywords:
terraform plan
infrastructure review
iam
The question worth asking about a Terraform change is not "is this correct". It is "what does this destroy, and what does it expose".

My review prompt:

"Here is a terraform plan output. Answer only these:
  • 1. Which resources are destroyed or replaced, and is any of them stateful?

  • 1. Which change alters a security group, IAM policy, or public accessibility, and in which direction?

  • 1. Which change causes downtime, and how long?

  • 1. What is missing that this change implies — an alarm, a backup, a DNS record?


    • Do not comment on style."

    Question 4 is the one that has caught real problems for me: a new RDS instance with no backup retention, a new ALB with no alarm on 5xx. The plan is correct, the change is incomplete, and only the fourth question finds it.

    Attachments (2)

    Attachment
    Attachment
    10.2k2

    Generated Outputs (1)

    1 weeks ago
    ChatGPT
    gpt-4-turbo
    Generated Output
  • 1. DESTROY: aws_db_instance.analytics (STATEFUL — replacement forced by engine_version change; verify a final snapshot is taken).

  • 1. aws_security_group_rule.api_ingress widens 0.0.0.0/0 on 5432. Direction: more open.

  • 1. RDS replacement: ~12 min unavailability.

  • 1. Missing: no aws_db_instance backup_retention_period set on the replacement; the old one had 7.
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