Terraform overview

Key concepts

Resources and data sources

Terraform uses two object types to manage cloud infrastructure:

Resources — objects that Terraform creates and manages. Each resource block defines one infrastructure object, such as an ACK cluster or node pool.
Data sources — read-only queries that retrieve attributes of resources created outside the current configuration.

Example:

### Data sources
# List instance types with 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of memory.
# Reference: https://registry.terraform.io/providers/aliyun/alicloud/latest/docs/data-sources/instance_types
data "alicloud_instance_types" "c2g4" {
  cpu_core_count = 2
  memory_size    = 4
}

### Resources
# Create a Server Load Balancer (SLB) instance.
# Reference: https://registry.terraform.io/providers/aliyun/alicloud/latest/docs/resources/instance
resource "alicloud_slb" "default" {
  name          = var.name
  specification = "slb.s2.small"
  vswitch_id    = alicloud_vswitch.default.id
}

See Use ACK with Terraform for the complete list.

Plugins

Terraform has two categories of plug-ins:

Terraform CLI — the command-line tool to plan, apply, and destroy configurations.
Terraform providers — plug-ins that translate Terraform configuration into API calls for a specific cloud, published on the Terraform Registry.

Alibaba Cloud is the first cloud provider in China to integrate Terraform. The Alibaba Cloud provider (terraform-provider-alicloud) supports 163 resources and 113 data sources across 35 services, including computing, storage, networking, load balancing, CDN, middleware, access control, and databases.

To set up the Alibaba Cloud provider, see Install and configure Terraform in the local PC or Use Terraform in Cloud Shell.

Why use Terraform for ACK

Terraform offers several advantages over managing ACK clusters directly through the console, CLI, or API.

Multi-cloud deployments — manage infrastructure across Alibaba Cloud, other clouds, and on-premises data centers with one toolchain and configuration language.
Automated, repeatable provisioning — define cluster configuration once and apply it consistently across development, staging, and production, eliminating configuration drift.
Infrastructure as code — store cluster configuration in version control alongside application code. Track changes, review modifications in pull requests, and roll back when needed.
Reduced costs — spin up dev and test environments on demand and tear them down when idle. Evaluate cost impact before applying changes.

Use ACK with Terraform

ACK supports the following Terraform resources and data sources.

Resources

Resource	Description
alicloud_cs_managed_kubernetes	Manages ACK managed clusters
alicloud_cs_kubernetes	Manages ACK dedicated clusters
alicloud_cs_serverless_kubernetes	Manages ACK Serverless clusters
alicloud_cs_edge_kubernetes	Manages ACK edge clusters
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_node_pool	Manages node pools
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_permissions	Manages Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) permissions
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_addon	Manages cluster add-ons

Data sources

Data source	Description
alicloud_ack_service	Activates ACK
alicloud_cs_managed_kubernetes_clusters	Lists all ACK managed clusters
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_clusters	Lists all ACK dedicated clusters
alicloud_cs_serverless_kubernetes_clusters	Lists all ACK Serverless clusters
alicloud_cs_edge_kubernetes_clusters	Lists all ACK edge clusters
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_permissions	Lists permissions for specified Resource Access Management (RAM) users
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_addon_metadata	Lists cluster add-on metadata
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_addons	Lists available cluster add-ons
alicloud_cs_kubernetes_version	Lists available Kubernetes versions

Keep cluster infrastructure (VPC, node pools, RBAC) in a separate Terraform project from Kubernetes workloads (Deployments, Services). They have different change cadences and are typically owned by different teams.