How to Import an Google Kubernetes Engine Node Pool into Terraform

Import Google Kubernetes Engine Node Pool with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Google Kubernetes Engine resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Kubernetes Engine Node Pool 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_container_node_pool.primary
  id = "projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/clusters/prod-gke/nodePools/default-pool"
}

Example google_container_node_pool configuration

Here is a realistic Google Kubernetes Engine Node Pool block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_container_node_pool" "primary" {
  name       = "default-pool"
  cluster    = "prod-gke"
  location   = "us-central1"
  node_count = 3

  node_config {
    machine_type = "e2-standard-4"
    oauth_scopes = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform"]
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Kubernetes Engine Node Pool

• location can be a zone (zonal cluster) or a region (regional cluster); use the exact value from the cluster path.
• The parent google_container_cluster must exist; node pools are child resources of a cluster.
• Many node_config fields force recreation of the whole pool, so review the plan carefully before the first apply.
• If the cluster was created with remove_default_node_pool = false, the default-pool node pool still exists and may need importing here.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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