How to Import an Azure Monitor Autoscale Setting into Terraform

Import Azure Monitor Autoscale Setting 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 Autoscale Setting 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_autoscale_setting.web
  id = "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/prod-rg/providers/Microsoft.Insights/autoscaleSettings/web-autoscale"
}

Example azurerm_monitor_autoscale_setting configuration

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

resource "azurerm_monitor_autoscale_setting" "web" {
  name                = "web-autoscale"
  resource_group_name = "prod-rg"
  location            = "eastus"
  target_resource_id  = azurerm_linux_virtual_machine_scale_set.web.id

  profile {
    name = "default"

    capacity {
      default = 2
      minimum = 2
      maximum = 10
    }

    rule {
      metric_trigger {
        metric_name        = "Percentage CPU"
        metric_resource_id = azurerm_linux_virtual_machine_scale_set.web.id
        time_grain         = "PT1M"
        statistic          = "Average"
        time_window        = "PT5M"
        time_aggregation   = "Average"
        operator           = "GreaterThan"
        threshold          = 75
      }

      scale_action {
        direction = "Increase"
        type      = "ChangeCount"
        value     = "1"
        cooldown  = "PT5M"
      }
    }
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Azure Monitor Autoscale Setting

• The ID uses the Microsoft.Insights provider namespace, not the compute namespace of the resource it scales.
• target_resource_id must point at a scalable resource (VM scale set, App Service plan, etc.); that resource is imported separately.
• At least one profile with a capacity block is required, and each rule pairs a metric_trigger with a scale_action.
• Time fields use ISO 8601 durations (PT1M, PT5M); an empty or wrong format causes a plan error.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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