Thomas Hartenstein

Implementing Feature Environments with AWS and Terraform

Are your developers blocked by a single shared environment? Learn how to create automated, isolated feature environments on AWS with Terraform workspaces.

Implementing Feature Environments with AWS and Terraform
#1about 3 minutes

Understanding the concept of feature environments

Feature environments create short-lived, automated copies of your infrastructure for each feature branch, preventing developers from blocking each other.

#2about 2 minutes

Weighing the pros and cons of feature environments

While feature environments prevent development bottlenecks and allow safe testing, they introduce extra costs, setup effort, and require team discipline.

#3about 2 minutes

How Terraform manages infrastructure as code

Terraform is a tool that translates declarative configuration files into API calls to provision and manage infrastructure across various cloud providers.

#4about 13 minutes

Implementing feature environments with Terraform workspaces

Terraform workspaces allow you to manage multiple, independent state files from a single configuration, enabling the creation of isolated environments.

#5about 4 minutes

Creating unique AWS resources using workspace variables

By appending the `terraform.workspace` variable to resource names, you can provision unique AWS resources like S3 buckets for each feature environment.

#6about 3 minutes

Managing AWS naming rules with Terraform functions

Use Terraform's built-in functions like `lower`, `substring`, and `replace` to sanitize feature branch names to comply with strict AWS resource naming restrictions.

#7about 14 minutes

Automating environment creation with a CI/CD pipeline

A CI/CD pipeline can be configured to automatically trigger on new feature branches, create a corresponding Terraform workspace, and apply the infrastructure.

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