How to Import an Google Cloud Bigtable Table into Terraform

Import Google Cloud Bigtable Table with Terraback (recommended)

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

terraback scan all gcp --project my-gcp-project

terraback gcp 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 = google_bigtable_table.events
  id = "projects/my-project/instances/prod-bt/tables/events"
}

Example google_bigtable_table configuration

Here is a realistic Google Cloud Bigtable Table block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_bigtable_table" "events" {
  name          = "events"
  instance_name = google_bigtable_instance.prod.name

  column_family {
    family = "metrics"
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud Bigtable Table

• Import the parent google_bigtable_instance as well; the table only references it by instance name.
• column_family blocks define families but not their garbage-collection policies; GC rules are managed with separate google_bigtable_gc_policy resources.
• split_keys is only honored at creation time and is ignored on import, so do not expect existing tablet boundaries to round-trip.
• Table IAM is separate: authoritative google_bigtable_table_iam_binding overwrites all members for a role, while google_bigtable_table_iam_member adds a single member non-destructively.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the google_bigtable_table block by hand, then run terraform import google_bigtable_table.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 Google Cloud resources