How to Import an Google Binary Authorization Policy into Terraform

Import Google Binary Authorization Policy with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Google Binary Authorization resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Binary Authorization Policy 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_binary_authorization_policy.policy
  id = "projects/my-project"
}

Example google_binary_authorization_policy configuration

Here is a realistic Google Binary Authorization Policy block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_binary_authorization_policy" "policy" {
  default_admission_rule {
    evaluation_mode  = "ALWAYS_ALLOW"
    enforcement_mode = "ENFORCED_BLOCK_AND_AUDIT_LOG"
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Binary Authorization Policy

• There is exactly one Binary Authorization policy per project; the import ID is the project, not a policy name.
• default_admission_rule is required and must always be present, even if every cluster has its own cluster_admission_rules override.
• Attestors referenced in require_attestations_by are separate google_binary_authorization_attestor resources and are not imported with the policy.
• Deleting this resource does not remove enforcement; it resets the project back to the default ALWAYS_ALLOW policy.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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