How to Import an Google Project IAM Member into Terraform

Import Google Project IAM Member 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 Member 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_member.ci_logging
  id = "my-project roles/logging.logWriter serviceAccount:ci@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
}

Example google_project_iam_member configuration

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

resource "google_project_iam_member" "ci_logging" {
  project = "my-project"
  role    = "roles/logging.logWriter"
  member  = "serviceAccount:ci@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Project IAM Member

• An iam_member is additive (non-authoritative): it grants the role to one member only and leaves all other members of that role untouched, so it is the safest project-level IAM resource.
• The import ID has three space-separated parts: the project ID, the role, and the single member including its type prefix.
• Do not manage the same role with both google_project_iam_member and google_project_iam_binding, or the authoritative binding will keep deleting the member grant.
• The member prefix matters: serviceAccount:, user:, group:, and domain: are not interchangeable.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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