Skip to main content

​
Synopsis

Search and list remote infrastructure with Terraform

​
Usage

terraform [global options] query [options]

​
Description

The terraform query command queries remote infrastructure for resources. Terraform will search for .tfquery.hcl files within the current configuration directory. It then uses the configured providers to query the remote infrastructure for resources that match the defined list blocks. The results are printed to the terminal and can optionally be used to generate Terraform configuration and import blocks for discovered resources. This command is particularly useful for:
  • Discovering existing infrastructure that is not yet managed by Terraform
  • Generating import configurations for existing resources
  • Auditing cloud resources
  • Finding resources that match specific criteria

​
Query Customization Options

​
-var
string
Set a value for one of the input variables in the query file. Use the format -var 'name=value'. This option can be specified multiple times to set multiple variables.Example: -var 'environment=production'
​
-var-file
string
Load variable values from the given file, in addition to the default files terraform.tfvars and *.auto.tfvars. This option can be specified multiple times to include multiple variable files.Example: -var-file="prod.tfvars"

​
Other Options

​
-generate-config-out
string
Instructs Terraform to generate import and resource blocks for any found results. The configuration is written to a new file at the specified path, which must not already exist.When this option is used with the -json flag, the generated configuration will be part of the JSON output instead of written to a file.Example: -generate-config-out=generated.tf
​
-json
boolean
If specified, machine-readable output will be printed in JSON format instead of human-readable output.Default: false
​
-no-color
boolean
If specified, output won’t contain any color formatting.Default: false

​
Query Files

Query files use the .tfquery.hcl extension and define the search criteria for remote resources. These files are automatically discovered in the current configuration directory when the query command runs.

​
Exit Codes

  • 0 - Success (operation completed successfully)
  • 1 - Error occurred (flag parsing errors, backend errors, configuration errors, or operation failures)
  • Operation-specific exit codes - The command returns the exit status from the backend operation

​
Examples

​
Basic query operation

terraform query
This searches for resources matching the criteria defined in .tfquery.hcl files and displays results in human-readable format.

​
Query with JSON output

terraform query -json
Outputs query results in machine-readable JSON format.

​
Query with configuration generation

terraform query -generate-config-out=discovered.tf
Searches for resources and generates Terraform configuration and import blocks in discovered.tf.

​
Query with variables

terraform query -var 'region=us-west-2' -var 'environment=prod'
Runs the query with custom variable values.

​
Query with variable file

terraform query -var-file="production.tfvars"
Loads variables from a file before running the query.

​
Query with JSON and config generation

terraform query -json -generate-config-out=output.tf
Outputs results in JSON format and includes the generated configuration in the JSON output (rather than writing to a separate file).

​
Query without color output

terraform query -no-color
Runs the query and displays results without color formatting, useful for logging or CI/CD environments.

​
Notes

  • The command sets parallelism to the default value (DefaultParallelism) internally
  • The -chdir global flag should be used to specify a working directory, not positional arguments
  • Actions cannot be specified during query operations (no -target flags)
  • The command respects provider development overrides and will show warnings when they are active

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us