Make environments repeatable
How Terraform and Ansible help teams review changes and reduce configuration drift.
Manual configuration leaves an important question unanswered: what exactly changed? Infrastructure as code moves that information into version-controlled files that a team can review.
Reusable Terraform modules help organize infrastructure. Environment-specific values remain explicit, while Ansible can handle configuration and operational tasks where it fits the system.
- Keep reusable structure separate from environment-specific values.
- Use pull requests to review infrastructure changes before applying them.
- Keep credentials out of source control and use an appropriate secrets mechanism.
- Review plans, state access and the expected impact of changes.
- Document the process for the person who will operate the environment next.
The goal is an infrastructure setup the team can reproduce and explain. Tool complexity is useful only when it serves that goal.