How to Import an Google Cloud Composer Environment into Terraform

Import Google Cloud Composer Environment with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Cloud Composer resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Cloud Composer Environment 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_composer_environment.prod
  id = "projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/environments/airflow-prod"
}

Example google_composer_environment configuration

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

resource "google_composer_environment" "prod" {
  name   = "airflow-prod"
  region = "us-central1"

  config {
    node_config {
      machine_type = "n1-standard-2"
      network      = "projects/my-project/global/networks/prod-vpc"
      subnetwork   = "projects/my-project/regions/us-central1/subnetworks/composer"
    }
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud Composer Environment

• Composer 1 and Composer 2 have very different config schemas (node_count and node_config vs workloads_config); match the live image version.
• An environment provisions a backing GKE cluster and bucket that Composer manages; do not try to import or manage those separately.
• Many config fields force recreation and the create takes 20-30 minutes, so review the plan carefully before the first apply.
• Airflow config overrides and PyPI packages live under software_config and may not round-trip cleanly on import.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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