How to Import an Azure Cosmos DB Account into Terraform

Import Azure Cosmos DB Account with Terraback (recommended)

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

terraback scan all azure --subscription-id YOUR_ID

terraback azure 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 = azurerm_cosmosdb_account.main
  id = "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/prod-rg/providers/Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/prod-cosmos"
}

Example azurerm_cosmosdb_account configuration

Here is a realistic Azure Cosmos DB Account block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "azurerm_cosmosdb_account" "main" {
  name                = "prod-cosmos"
  resource_group_name = "prod-rg"
  location            = "eastus"
  offer_type          = "Standard"
  kind                = "GlobalDocumentDB"

  consistency_policy {
    consistency_level = "Session"
  }

  geo_location {
    location          = "eastus"
    failover_priority = 0
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Azure Cosmos DB Account

• The ARM type is Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts; the account name must be globally unique and lowercase.
• At least one consistency_policy and one geo_location block are required; geo_location ordering by failover_priority matters.
• Databases and containers are separate azurerm_cosmosdb_sql_database / azurerm_cosmosdb_sql_container (or mongo/cassandra/gremlin) resources.
• kind and the API capability (for example EnableMongo) are effectively immutable; switching APIs forces a new account.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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