We appreciate direct contributions to the provider codebase. Here's what to expect:
- For pull requests that follow the guidelines, we will proceed to reviewing and merging, following the provider team's review schedule. There may be some internal or community discussion needed before we can complete this.
- Pull requests that don't follow the guidelines will be commented with what they're missing. The person who submits the pull request or another community member will need to address those requests before they move forward.
-
Fork the GitHub repository, modify the code, and create a pull request. You are welcome to submit your pull request for commentary or review before it is fully completed by creating a draft pull request or adding
[WIP]
to the beginning of the pull request title. Please include specific questions or items you'd like feedback on. -
Once you believe your pull request is ready to be reviewed, ensure the pull request is not a draft pull request by marking it ready for review or removing
[WIP]
from the pull request title if necessary, and a maintainer will review it. Follow the checklists below to help ensure that your contribution can be easily reviewed and potentially merged. -
One of Terraform's provider team members will look over your contribution and either approve it or provide comments letting you know if there is anything left to do. We do our best to keep up with the volume of PRs waiting for review, but it may take some time depending on the complexity of the work.
-
Once all outstanding comments and checklist items have been addressed, your contribution will be merged! Merged PRs will be included in the next Terraform release. The provider team takes care of updating the CHANGELOG as they merge.
-
In some cases, we might decide that a PR should be closed without merging. We'll make sure to provide clear reasoning when this happens.
We try to use a common set of branch name prefixes when submitting pull requests. Prefixes give us an idea of what the branch is for. For example, td-staticcheck-st1008
would let us know the branch was created to fix a technical debt issue, and f-aws_emr_instance_group-refactor
would indicate a feature request for the aws_emr_instance_group
resource that’s being refactored. These are the prefixes we currently use:
- f = feature
- b = bug fix
- d = documentation
- td = technical debt
- v = "vendoring"/dependencies
Conventions across non-AWS providers varies so when working with other providers please check the names of previously created branches and conform to their standard practices.
The Terraform AWS Provider follows common practices to ensure consistent and reliable implementations across all resources in the project. While there may be older resource and testing code that predates these guidelines, new submissions are generally expected to adhere to these items to maintain Terraform Provider quality. For any guidelines listed, contributors are encouraged to ask any questions and community reviewers are encouraged to provide review suggestions based on these guidelines to speed up the review and merge process.
The following Go language resources provide common coding preferences that may be referenced during review, if not automatically handled by the project's linting tools.
The following resource checks need to be addressed before your contribution can be merged. The exclusion of any applicable check may result in a delayed time to merge.
-
Passes Testing: All code and documentation changes must pass unit testing, code linting, and website link testing. Resource code changes must pass all acceptance testing for the resource.
-
Avoids API Calls Across Account, Region, and Service Boundaries: Resources should not implement cross-account, cross-region, or cross-service API calls.
-
Avoids Optional and Required for Non-Configurable Attributes: Resource schema definitions for read-only attributes should not include
Optional: true
orRequired: true
. -
Avoids resource.Retry() without resource.RetryableError(): Resource logic should only implement
resource.Retry()
if there is a retryable condition (e.g.return resource.RetryableError(err)
). -
Avoids Resource Read Function in Data Source Read Function: Data sources should fully implement their own resource
Read
functionality including duplicatingd.Set()
calls. -
Avoids Reading Schema Structure in Resource Code: The resource
Schema
should not be read in resourceCreate
/Read
/Update
/Delete
functions to perform looping or otherwise complex attribute logic. Used.Get()
andd.Set()
directly with individual attributes instead. -
Avoids ResourceData.GetOkExists(): Resource logic should avoid using
ResourceData.GetOkExists()
as its expected functionality is not guaranteed in all scenarios. -
Implements Read After Create and Update: Except where API eventual consistency prohibits immediate reading of resources or updated attributes, resource
Create
andUpdate
functions should return the resourceRead
function. -
Implements Immediate Resource ID Set During Create: Immediately after calling the API creation function, the resource ID should be set with
d.SetId()
before other API operations or returning theRead
function. -
Implements Attribute Refreshes During Read: All attributes available in the API should have
d.Set()
called their values in the Terraform state during theRead
function. -
Implements Error Checks with Non-Primative Attribute Refreshes: When using
d.Set()
with non-primative types (schema.TypeList
,schema.TypeSet
, orschema.TypeMap
), perform error checking to prevent issues where the code is not properly able to refresh the Terraform state. -
Implements Import Acceptance Testing and Documentation: Support for resource import (
Importer
in resource schema) must includeImportState
acceptance testing (see also the Acceptance Testing Guidelines below) and## Import
section in resource documentation. -
Implements Customizable Timeouts Documentation: Support for customizable timeouts (
Timeouts
in resource schema) must include## Timeouts
section in resource documentation. -
Implements State Migration When Adding New Virtual Attribute: For new "virtual" attributes (those only in Terraform and not in the API), the schema should implement State Migration to prevent differences for existing configurations that upgrade.
-
Uses AWS Go SDK Constants: Many AWS services provide string constants for value enumerations, error codes, and status types. See also the "Constants" sections under each of the service packages in the AWS Go SDK documentation.
-
Uses AWS Go SDK Pointer Conversion Functions: Many APIs return pointer types and these functions return the zero value for the type if the pointer is
nil
. This prevents potential panics from unchecked*
pointer dereferences and can eliminate boilerplatenil
checking in many cases. See also theaws
package in the AWS Go SDK documentation. -
Uses AWS Go SDK Types: Use available SDK structs instead of implementing custom types with indirection.
-
Uses TypeList and MaxItems: 1: Configuration block attributes (e.g.
Type: schema.TypeList
orType: schema.TypeSet
withElem: &schema.Resource{...}
) that can only have one block should useType: schema.TypeList
andMaxItems: 1
in the schema definition. -
Uses Existing Validation Functions: Schema definitions including
ValidateFunc
for attribute validation should use available Terraformhelper/validation
package functions.All()
/Any()
can be used for combining multiple validation function behaviors. -
Uses isResourceTimeoutError() with resource.Retry(): Resource logic implementing
resource.Retry()
should error check withisResourceTimeoutError(err error)
and potentially unset the error before returning the error. For example:var output *kms.CreateKeyOutput err := resource.Retry(1*time.Minute, func() *resource.RetryError { var err error output, err = conn.CreateKey(input) /* ... */ return nil }) if isResourceTimeoutError(err) { output, err = conn.CreateKey(input) } if err != nil { return fmt.Errorf("error creating KMS External Key: %s", err) }
-
Uses resource.NotFoundError: Custom errors for missing resources should use
resource.NotFoundError
. -
Uses resource.UniqueId(): API fields for concurrency protection such as
CallerReference
andIdempotencyToken
should useresource.UniqueId()
. The implementation includes a monotonic counter which is safer for concurrent operations than solutions such astime.Now()
. -
Skips Exists Function: Implementing a resource
Exists
function is extraneous as it often duplicates resourceRead
functionality. Ensured.SetId("")
is used to appropriately trigger resource recreation in the resourceRead
function. -
Skips id Attribute: The
id
attribute is implicit for all Terraform resources and does not need to be defined in the schema.
The below are style-based items that may be noted during review and are recommended for simplicity, consistency, and quality assurance:
- Avoids CustomizeDiff: Usage of
CustomizeDiff
is generally discouraged. - Implements Error Message Context: Returning errors from resource
Create
,Read
,Update
, andDelete
functions should include additional messaging about the location or cause of the error for operators and code maintainers by wrapping withfmt.Errorf()
.- An example
Delete
API error:return fmt.Errorf("error deleting {SERVICE} {THING} (%s): %s", d.Id(), err)
- An example
d.Set()
error:return fmt.Errorf("error setting {ATTRIBUTE}: %s", err)
- An example
- Implements arn Attribute: APIs that return an Amazon Resource Name (ARN), should implement
arn
as an attribute. - Implements Warning Logging With Resource State Removal: If a resource is removed outside of Terraform (e.g. via different tool, API, or web UI),
d.SetId("")
andreturn nil
can be used in the resourceRead
function to trigger resource recreation. When this occurs, a warning log message should be printed beforehand:log.Printf("[WARN] {SERVICE} {THING} (%s) not found, removing from state", d.Id())
- Uses isAWSErr() with AWS Go SDK Error Objects: Use the available
isAWSErr(err error, code string, message string)
helper function instead of theawserr
package to compare error code and message contents. - Uses %s fmt Verb with AWS Go SDK Objects: AWS Go SDK objects implement
String()
so using the%v
,%#v
, or%+v
fmt verbs with the object are extraneous or provide unhelpful detail. - Uses Elem with TypeMap: While provider schema validation does not error when the
Elem
configuration is not present withType: schema.TypeMap
attributes, including the explicitElem: &schema.Schema{Type: schema.TypeString}
is recommended. - Uses American English for Attribute Naming: For any ambiguity with attribute naming, prefer American English over British English. e.g.
color
instead ofcolour
. - Skips Timestamp Attributes: Generally, creation and modification dates from the API should be omitted from the schema.
- Skips Error() Call with AWS Go SDK Error Objects: Error objects do not need to have
Error()
called.