How to Import an Google Deployment Manager Deployment into Terraform

Import Google Deployment Manager Deployment with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Google Cloud Deployment Manager resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Deployment Manager Deployment 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_deployment_manager_deployment.main
  id = "projects/my-project/deployments/my-deployment"
}

Example google_deployment_manager_deployment configuration

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

resource "google_deployment_manager_deployment" "main" {
  name = "my-deployment"

  target {
    config {
      content = file("config.yaml")
    }
  }

  delete_policy = "DELETE"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Deployment Manager Deployment

• The target.config.content is not returned by the API on read, so a plan will show a diff until you point content at the original config file.
• Deployment Manager itself is in maintenance mode at Google; importing it into Terraform is often a stepping stone toward replacing it with native resources.
• delete_policy controls whether destroying the Terraform resource also deletes the underlying GCP resources (DELETE) or abandons them (ABANDON).
• preview = true creates the deployment in preview state without provisioning resources; leave it unset to actually apply.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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