Export your Google Cloud resources into Terraform format

You've deployed resources in Google Cloud, and now need to manage your infrastructure as code (IaC) with Terraform. Google provides a tool that you can use to generate Terraform code for resources in a project, folder, or organization.

Before you begin

Install the command-line interface (CLI) for Config Connector.

gcloud components install config-connector

Config Connector lets you use Google Cloud's Terraform bulk-export tool.

Export the entire project configuration to Terraform HCL code

The gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export --resource-format=terraform command exports resources currently configured in the project, folder, or organization and prints them to the screen in HCL code format.

gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --resource-format=terraform

Write the output to a directory structure

Output the project's entire configuration to a path:

gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export \
  --path=OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_NAME \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --resource-format=terraform

The --path flag specifies the location to output the HCL code. If the path OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_NAME doesn't exist, a prompt asks you if you want to create it.

After running the command, the HCL code for each resource is output to a separate .tf file in the following directory structure:

OUTPUT_DIRECTORY_NAME/projects/PROJECT_ID/RESOURCE_TYPE

Write the output to a single file

If you don't want to print the output to the screen or create separate .tf files, you can write all of the output to a single file, as shown in this example:

gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export --resource-format=terraform >> gcp_resources.tf

Filter the output

Filter the output of the bulk export command by specifying resource types.

List the supported resource types to filter on

For a list of supported resource types, run the gcloud beta resource-config list-resource-types command:

gcloud beta resource-config list-resource-types

Optionally, write the output to a file:

gcloud beta resource-config list-resource-types >> strings.txt

In the output, the resource type for Compute Engine VMs is listed as:

KRM KIND: ComputeInstance

You can ignore the KRM KIND: prefix.

Export a single resource type

Use the ComputeInstance string shown in the previous command to export only the Compute Engine VM instances for your project in HCL code format:

gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export \
  --resource-types=ComputeInstance \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --resource-format=terraform

The --resource-types flag specifies the resource type to output.

Export multiple resource types

Export VM instances and firewall rules in HCL code format:

gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export \
  --resource-types=ComputeFirewall,ComputeInstance \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --resource-format=terraform

Use a file to specify the resource types to export

Create a directory called tf-output.
```
cd && mkdir tf-output && cd tf-output
```
Create a file called types.txt, and add a list of resource types. For example:
```
ComputeBackendBucket
ComputeBackendService
ComputeForwardingRule
```

Run the gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export command with the --resource-types-file flag:

gcloud beta resource-config bulk-export \
 --resource-types-file=types.txt \
 --path=tf-output \
 --project=PROJECT_ID \
 --resource-format=terraform

If the project doesn't contain any of a particular resource type, the command succeeds but nothing is output for that resource type.

Next steps

Import your Google Cloud resources into Terraform state.