How to Import an AWS Secrets Manager Secret into Terraform

Import AWS Secrets Manager Secret with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the AWS Secrets Manager resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live AWS Secrets Manager Secret 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_secretsmanager_secret.db
  id = "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:123456789012:secret:prod/db-AbCdEf"
}

Example aws_secretsmanager_secret configuration

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

resource "aws_secretsmanager_secret" "db" {
  name        = "prod/db"
  description = "Production database credentials"

  recovery_window_in_days = 30
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS Secrets Manager Secret

• Import by the full secret ARN, which includes the random 6-character suffix AWS appends to the name.
• The secret value is a separate aws_secretsmanager_secret_version resource; the metadata resource imported here does not contain the secret string.
• The resource policy (aws_secretsmanager_secret_policy) and rotation configuration may be separate resources depending on how they were created.
• Deletion is soft by default; recovery_window_in_days (7 to 30) delays permanent removal unless you force immediate deletion.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the aws_secretsmanager_secret block by hand, then run terraform import aws_secretsmanager_secret.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