How to Import an AWS Secrets Manager Secret Policy into Terraform

Import AWS Secrets Manager Secret Policy 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 Policy 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_policy.example
  id = "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:123456789012:secret:example-123456"
}

Example aws_secretsmanager_secret_policy configuration

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

resource "aws_secretsmanager_secret_policy" "example" {
  secret_arn = "arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:123456789012:secret:example-123456"

  policy = jsonencode({
    Version = "2012-10-17"
    Statement = [{
      Sid       = "EnableCrossAccountRead"
      Effect    = "Allow"
      Principal = { AWS = "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:root" }
      Action    = "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue"
      Resource  = "*"
    }]
  })
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS Secrets Manager Secret Policy

• The resource policy is a one-to-one child of an aws_secretsmanager_secret and is imported by the full secret ARN (which includes the random 6-character suffix), not the secret name.
• policy is a JSON document, so wrap it in jsonencode and expect Terraform to show a diff from key ordering or whitespace until the canonical form matches.
• block_public_policy defaults to false; leaving an overly permissive policy after import can expose the secret across accounts, so review the imported document.
• Importing the policy does not import the secret itself or its versions; those are separate aws_secretsmanager_secret and aws_secretsmanager_secret_version resources.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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