How to Import an Google Project IAM Custom Role into Terraform

Import Google Project IAM Custom Role with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Google Cloud IAM resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Project IAM Custom Role 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_project_iam_custom_role.viewer_plus
  id = "projects/my-project/roles/viewerPlus"
}

Example google_project_iam_custom_role configuration

Here is a realistic Google Project IAM Custom Role block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_project_iam_custom_role" "viewer_plus" {
  role_id     = "viewerPlus"
  title       = "Viewer Plus"
  description = "Read access plus log viewing"
  permissions = [
    "resourcemanager.projects.get",
    "logging.logEntries.list",
  ]
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Project IAM Custom Role

• This is a project-scoped custom role definition, not an IAM binding; it grants nothing until referenced by a google_project_iam_binding or _member.
• role_id is immutable and case-sensitive; deleting a role only soft-deletes it for ~7 days, during which the same role_id cannot be recreated.
• Every permission must be lowercase and individually grantable at the project level, or the API rejects the apply.
• stage (ALPHA, BETA, GA, DISABLED) round-trips on import; a DISABLED role exists but cannot be granted.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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