Terragrunt Development

Safety Rules

NEVER run without user confirmation:

• terragrunt apply
• terragrunt destroy
• terragrunt run-all apply
• terragrunt run-all destroy

ALWAYS run first:

• terragrunt plan
• terragrunt validate

Workflow

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  VALIDATE → PLAN → REVIEW → APPLY                     │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Step 1: Validate

terragrunt validate
terragrunt hclfmt --check

Step 2: Plan

# Single module
terragrunt plan

# All modules (be careful!)
terragrunt run-all plan

Show plan to user and wait for confirmation.

Step 3: Apply (only after explicit approval)

terragrunt apply

Linting

# Format check
terragrunt hclfmt --check

# Format and fix
terragrunt hclfmt

# Validate all
terragrunt run-all validate

Project Structure

infrastructure/
├── terragrunt.hcl              # Root config
├── _envcommon/                 # Shared configs
│   └── vpc.hcl
├── prod/
│   ├── env.hcl
│   ├── vpc/
│   │   └── terragrunt.hcl
│   └── eks/
│       └── terragrunt.hcl
├── staging/
│   ├── env.hcl
│   └── vpc/
│       └── terragrunt.hcl
└── modules/                    # Terraform modules
    └── vpc/
        ├── main.tf
        ├── variables.tf
        └── outputs.tf

Root terragrunt.hcl Template

# Root terragrunt.hcl

remote_state {
  backend = "s3"
  generate = {
    path      = "backend.tf"
    if_exists = "overwrite_terragrunt"
  }
  config = {
    bucket         = "my-terraform-state"
    key            = "${path_relative_to_include()}/terraform.tfstate"
    region         = "us-east-1"
    encrypt        = true
    dynamodb_table = "terraform-locks"
  }
}

generate "provider" {
  path      = "provider.tf"
  if_exists = "overwrite_terragrunt"
  contents  = <<EOF
provider "aws" {
  region = var.aws_region
}
EOF
}

Pre-Apply Checklist

Terragrunt Checklist:
- [ ] terragrunt validate passed
- [ ] terragrunt hclfmt --check passed
- [ ] terragrunt plan reviewed
- [ ] Dependencies understood
- [ ] User confirmed changes
- [ ] Ready to apply

run-all Safety

When using run-all:

• Always review dependency graph first
• Use --terragrunt-parallelism 1 for safer execution
• Consider --terragrunt-exclude-dir for sensitive paths

# Show dependency graph
terragrunt graph-dependencies

# Plan all with limited parallelism
terragrunt run-all plan --terragrunt-parallelism 1