After passing Google Professional Cloud Architect, I started learning Terraform to turn cloud architecture knowledge into reproducible Infrastructure as Code.
This is my first Terraform learning note with a simple goal of
- install Terraform on macOS
- verify that it works
- enable autocomplete
- document one error I encountered during setup
Requirements
For this setup, I used Homebrew.
If you do not have Homebrew installed yet, you can install it from:
https://brew.sh/
What is Homebrew?
Small info, Homebrew is a package manager for macOS and Linux. It helps install, update, and manage developer tools directly from the terminal.
Reference: This note is based on HashiCorp’s official Terraform installation guide. I rewrote the steps in my own words as part of my personal Terraform learning documentation.
Install Terraform on macOS
First, add HashiCorp’s official Homebrew tap.
brew tap hashicorp/tap
Verify the Installation
After installation, check whether Terraform is available.
terraform --version
You can also list Terraform’s available commands.
terraform --help
To inspect a specific command, add -help. For example:
terraform plan -help
Enable Terraform Autocomplete
Because I am using Zsh on macOS, I first made sure that the Zsh configuration file exists.
touch ~/.zshrc
Or if you are not too sure, go check it with
ls -la .zshrc
It will output the path to that file.
Then I installed Terraform autocomplete.
terraform -install-autocomplete
After installing autocomplete, restart the shell or reload the Zsh configuration.
source ~/.zshrc
The Error
After running terraform -install-autocomplete, I encountered this error when opening a new terminal window:
complete:13: command not found: compdef
Why This Happened
Terraform autocomplete uses shell completion.
In my case, Zsh’s completion system was not properly initialized before Terraform’s autocomplete command was loaded.
Because of that, the terminal could not recognize compdef.
The Fix
Open the Zsh configuration file.
nano ~/.zshrc
Then make sure the Zsh completion system is initialized before the Terraform autocomplete line.
My configuration looked like this:
# Initialize Zsh completion system
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit
# Initialize Bash completion compatibility
autoload -U +X bashcompinit && bashcompinit
# Terraform CLI autocomplete
complete -o nospace -C /opt/homebrew/bin/terraform terraform
Important note: the Terraform path may be different depending on your Mac.
To check your Terraform path, run:
which terraform
For Apple Silicon Macs, it is commonly:
/opt/homebrew/bin/terraform
Use the path returned by which terraform.
Restart the Shell
After updating .zshrc, reload it:
source ~/.zshrc
Test Autocomplete
Type this without pressing Enter:
terraform provi
Then press tab. The result should usually be
terraform providers
What I Learned
This was a small setup issue, but it reminded me of an important Infrastructure as Code principle:
Tooling setup matters.
This is only the first step. Next, I will start learning Terraform providers, resources, variables, outputs, and how Terraform works with Google Cloud.