How to Import an Google Cloud Monitoring Alert Policy into Terraform

Import Google Cloud Monitoring Alert Policy with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Cloud Monitoring resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Cloud Monitoring Alert 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_monitoring_alert_policy.high_cpu
  id = "projects/my-project/alertPolicies/9876543210123456789"
}

Example google_monitoring_alert_policy configuration

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

resource "google_monitoring_alert_policy" "high_cpu" {
  display_name = "High CPU"
  combiner     = "OR"
  enabled      = true

  conditions {
    display_name = "CPU above 80%"

    condition_threshold {
      filter          = "metric.type=\"compute.googleapis.com/instance/cpu/utilization\" resource.type=\"gce_instance\""
      duration        = "300s"
      comparison      = "COMPARISON_GT"
      threshold_value = 0.8
    }
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud Monitoring Alert Policy

• The import ID uses the numeric alertPolicies/<id>, not the display_name; find it with gcloud alpha monitoring policies list.
• Each condition also has a server-generated name; condition blocks should be copied carefully to avoid recreation churn.
• notification_channels reference google_monitoring_notification_channel resources by their full projects/.../notificationChannels/<id> name.
• The threshold filter is a Monitoring filter string with embedded quotes that must be escaped exactly.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the google_monitoring_alert_policy block by hand, then run terraform import google_monitoring_alert_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