How to Import an Google Cloud Build Trigger into Terraform

Import Google Cloud Build Trigger with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Cloud Build resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Cloud Build Trigger 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_cloudbuild_trigger.deploy
  id = "projects/my-project/triggers/a1b2c3d4-1111-2222-3333-444455556666"
}

Example google_cloudbuild_trigger configuration

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

resource "google_cloudbuild_trigger" "deploy" {
  name     = "deploy-main"
  filename = "cloudbuild.yaml"
  disabled = false

  github {
    owner = "my-org"
    name  = "my-repo"

    push {
      branch = "^main$"
    }
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud Build Trigger

• The import ID uses the trigger UUID (trigger_id), not the human-readable name, so look it up with gcloud builds triggers list.
• Regional triggers use projects/{project}/locations/{location}/triggers/{trigger_id}; global triggers omit the locations segment.
• Provide either a github / source_to_build block (modern repositories) or the legacy trigger_template block to match how the trigger was created.
• build steps defined inline versus a filename reference are mutually exclusive; match whichever the live trigger uses.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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