How to Import an Google Cloud Workflows Workflow into Terraform

Import Google Cloud Workflows Workflow with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Workflows resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Cloud Workflows Workflow 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_workflows_workflow.order
  id = "projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/workflows/order-flow"
}

Example google_workflows_workflow configuration

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

resource "google_workflows_workflow" "order" {
  name            = "order-flow"
  region          = "us-central1"
  service_account = "wf-runner@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com"

  source_contents = <<-EOT
    main:
      steps:
        - hello:
            return: "ok"
  EOT
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud Workflows Workflow

• In the import path the location is a locations/<region> segment, but the HCL attribute is named region.
• source_contents holds the full YAML or JSON workflow definition; whitespace differences can produce a diff, so paste it exactly.
• service_account is the identity the workflow runs as and must have the permissions the steps require.
• Each deployment creates a new workflow revision; past revisions are server-managed and are not Terraform resources.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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