How to Import an Google Secret Manager Secret into Terraform

Import Google Secret Manager Secret with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Secret Manager resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Secret Manager Secret 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_secret_manager_secret.api_key
  id = "projects/my-project/secrets/api-key"
}

Example google_secret_manager_secret configuration

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

resource "google_secret_manager_secret" "api_key" {
  secret_id = "api-key"

  replication {
    auto {}
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Secret Manager Secret

• This resource is the secret container only; the actual secret values are separate google_secret_manager_secret_version resources that are not imported here.
• The replication block (auto or user_managed) is required and immutable; it must match how the secret was created.
• The import ID uses secret_id (the name), not a version path; versions are addressed as .../secrets/<id>/versions/<n>.
• Secret payloads are never returned on import, so never expect Terraform to reconstruct the secret data.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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