How to Import an Azure Monitor Activity Log Alert into Terraform

Import Azure Monitor Activity Log Alert with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Azure Monitor resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Azure Monitor Activity Log Alert 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_monitor_activity_log_alert.main
  id = "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/prod-rg/providers/Microsoft.Insights/activityLogAlerts/prod-service-health"
}

Example azurerm_monitor_activity_log_alert configuration

Here is a realistic Azure Monitor Activity Log Alert block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "azurerm_monitor_activity_log_alert" "main" {
  name                = "prod-service-health"
  resource_group_name = "prod-rg"
  location            = "global"
  scopes              = ["/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"]

  criteria {
    category = "ServiceHealth"
  }

  action {
    action_group_id = azurerm_monitor_action_group.ops.id
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Azure Monitor Activity Log Alert

• The ARM type is Microsoft.Insights/activityLogAlerts; location is effectively always 'global' for activity log alerts even though the alert watches regional scopes.
• scopes is the list of subscription, resource group, or resource IDs being watched, and is distinct from the criteria block that filters which events fire.
• criteria requires a category (Administrative, ServiceHealth, ResourceHealth, Security, etc.); ServiceHealth and ResourceHealth use their own nested sub-blocks rather than flat fields.
• Each action block references an existing azurerm_monitor_action_group; importing the alert does not import those action groups.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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