Build Terraform Modules That Your Team Will Actually Reuse

We’re so glad you’re here. You can expect all the best TNS content to arrive Monday through Friday to keep you on top of the news and at the top of your game. Check your inbox for a confirmation email where you can adjust your preferences and even join additional groups. Follow TNS on your favorite social media networks. Become a TNS follower on LinkedIn. Check out the latest featured and trending stories while you wait for your first TNS newsletter. Many organizations struggle with Terraform module adoption, experiencing challenges such as:This guide shows how two software engineering principles can transform Terraform modules into components teams actually want to use.Most teams start with working infrastructure: a bucket, some identity and access management (IAM) permissions and basic security settings. The problem isn’t that it’s broken; it’s just that everything is tangled together in one module: This module has bundled in the bucket, the IAM role and the policies, but what happens when you need:This is why teams end up with slightly different copies of the same thing – s3-module-lambda, s3-module-ecs, s3-module-ec2.The first problem: Modules try to do too much. When your S3 module also creates IAM roles and policies, it becomes impossible to reuse for different services.Single responsibility says each module does one thing well. Let’s separate our concerns with a module that only manages S3 buckets. No IAM roles. No policies. Just buckets with sensible defaults. In practice: Your S3 module will be more complex, requiring encryption, cross-origin resource sharing (CORS), life cycle policies and more. Keep IAM, networking and compute resources in separate modules so that they become reusable across different services and teams.The second principle: Modules should compose cleanly. Each module requires a clear interface with predictable outputs that other modules can use.First, create your infrastructure resources using the separated modules: Then wire them together with explicit permissions: Because modules have predictable interfaces:In practice: Your modules will be larger units — an “application stack” or “data pipeline” rather than individual resources. Standardized interfaces and outputs let modules work together, whether you’re composing buckets and policies or entire Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) clusters. Predictable interfaces enable composition.These patterns solve the shadow module problem. Teams won’t need to bypass well-designed, composable modules. But you still face version fragmentation and breaking changes. When half your teams are on an older version and only new projects gain access to the latest version, every update now involves the added complexity of migration.The gap between good modules and a good platform is coordination. You need to make sure every team benefits from improvements without forcing them to change their workflows.We’ve built a new platform that makes this possible. With Suga, your Terraform modules become visual building blocks. Every team gets the same secure defaults. Platform updates benefit all apps automatically, not just new ones. Developers compose infrastructure through drag-and-drop, while your standards enforce themselves invisibly.Good modules get reused. Great modules become platforms. Request early access today. Community created roadmaps, articles, resources and journeys for developers to help you choose your path and grow in your career.