Terraform

The Terraform Bootstrap Problem: How to Create Your State Backend Without Going Insane

I keep a personal wiki of infrastructure patterns I’ve used. This is one of those notes, cleaned up for public consumption. Every time I start a fresh Terraform project, I reference this. You’re welcome to steal it.

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR - The Pattern That Works
2. The Problem Nobody Talks About
3. Why This Actually Matters
4. The Four Approaches People Try
5. The Bootstrap Module Pattern
6. Migrating Existing Infrastructure
7. S3-Compatible Backends
8. Production Failure Patterns
9. Bootstrap Principles
10. The Complete Checklist
11. Common Questions

TL;DR - The Pattern That Works

If you care about audits, recovery time, and team growth, the correct way to bootstrap Terraform state is: