How to Import an AWS EventBridge Rule into Terraform

Import AWS EventBridge Rule with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Amazon EventBridge resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live AWS EventBridge Rule to managed Terraform.

terraback scan all aws --region us-east-1

terraback aws import --method bulk

The Terraform import block

Terraback emits a Terraform 1.5+ import block like the one below. Because the block lives in your configuration, the import is reviewable in a pull request and repeatable across environments.

import {
  to = aws_cloudwatch_event_rule.capture
  id = "my-bus/capture-sign-in"
}

Example aws_cloudwatch_event_rule configuration

Here is a realistic AWS EventBridge Rule block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "aws_cloudwatch_event_rule" "capture" {
  name           = "capture-sign-in"
  event_bus_name = "my-bus"
  description    = "Capture console sign-in events"

  event_pattern = jsonencode({
    source      = ["aws.signin"]
    detail-type = ["AWS Console Sign In via CloudTrail"]
  })
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS EventBridge Rule

• For a custom bus the import ID must be prefixed with the bus name (event-bus-name/rule-name); rules on the default bus import by name alone.
• Rule targets are a separate aws_cloudwatch_event_target resource and are not imported with the rule.
• A rule must have either an event_pattern or a schedule_expression; copy whichever it uses, and note AWS normalizes the event_pattern JSON.
• EventBridge is the current name for what Terraform still calls aws_cloudwatch_event_rule; they are the same service.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the aws_cloudwatch_event_rule block by hand, then run terraform import aws_cloudwatch_event_rule.example <import-id> for every resource, one at a time. That works for a handful of resources, but it does not scale: you author all the HCL yourself and repeat the command for each item. Terraback generates the HCL and the import blocks for your whole account in one pass.

Import other AWS resources