Terraform Workspaces Explained: Manage Dev/Staging/Prod Environments with Separate States

youtube

Welcome to your essential 2025 guide to Terraform Workspaces! If you're managing infrastructure for different environments like development, staging, and production using the same Terraform configuration, you need Workspaces. This tutorial explains how this core Terraform feature allows you to maintain multiple, independent state files from a single set of .tf files, preventing chaos and enabling clean environment management. Stop duplicating code for each environment and learn the power of workspaces! This comprehensive guide, perfect for Terraform users deploying to AWS, Azure, GCP, or any cloud, will break down everything you need to know. We'll start by defining what Terraform Workspaces are and the critical problem they solve: managing distinct sets of infrastructure (like a dev database vs. a prod database) derived from the same configuration codebase. We'll emphasize how each workspace gets its own separate state file, ensuring that applying changes in dev doesn't accidentally impact prod. This isolation is the key benefit. You will learn the essential terraform workspace commands for managing your environments: terraform workspace list: See all your existing workspaces (you always start with default). terraform workspace show: Check which workspace you are currently operating in. terraform workspace new name: How to create a new workspace (e.g., terraform workspace new staging). terraform workspace select name: The crucial command to switch your context to a dif