HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate - Course Outline

1      Understand infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts

1a            Explain what IaC is

1b            Describe advantages of IaC patterns

2      Understand Terraform's purpose (vs other IaC)

2a            Explain multi-cloud and provider-agnostic benefits

2b            Explain the benefits of state

3       Understand Terraform basics

3a            Handle Terraform and provider installation and versioning

3b            Describe plugin based architecture

3c            Demonstrate using multiple providers

3d            Describe how Terraform finds and fetches providers

3e            Explain when to use and not use provisioners and when to use local-exec or remote-exec

4      Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow)

4a            Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform fmt to format code

4b            Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform taint to taint Terraform resources

4c            Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform import to import existing infrastructure into your Terraform state

4d            Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform workspace to create workspaces

4e            Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform state to view Terraform state

4f             Given a scenario: choose when to enable verbose logging and what the outcome/value is

5     Interact with Terraform modules

5a            Contrast module source options

5b            Interact with module inputs and outputs

5c            Describe variable scope within modules/child modules

5d            Discover modules from the public Terraform Module Registry

5e            Defining module version

6      Navigate Terraform workflow

6a            Describe Terraform workflow ( Write -> Plan -> Create )

6b            Initialize a Terraform working directory (terraform init)

6c            Validate a Terraform configuration (terraform validate)

6d            Generate and review an execution plan for Terraform (terraform plan)

6e            Execute changes to infrastructure with Terraform (terraform apply)

6f             Destroy Terraform managed infrastructure (terraform destroy)

7      Implement and maintain state

7a            Describe default local backend

7b            Outline state locking

7c            Handle backend authentication methods

7d            Describe remote state storage mechanisms and supported standard backends

7e            Describe effect of Terraform refresh on state

7f             Describe backend block in configuration and best practices for partial configurations

7g            Understand secret management in state files

8      Read, generate, and modify configuration

8a            Demonstrate use of variables and outputs

8b            Describe secure secret injection best practice

8c            Understand the use of collection and structural types

8d            Create and differentiate resource and data configuration

8e            Use resource addressing and resource parameters to connect resources together

8f             Use Terraform built-in functions to write configuration

8g            Configure resource using a dynamic block

8h            Describe built-in dependency management (order of execution based)

9      Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities

9a            Describe the benefits of Sentinel, registry, and workspaces

9b            Differentiate OSS and TFE workspaces

9c            Summarize features of Terraform Cloud