Workspaces and Environments

Managing multiple environments (development, staging, production) is a core challenge in infrastructure as code. Terraform provides several approaches: workspaces, directory structures, and variable files. This lesson covers each approach and when to use them.

---

Terraform Workspaces

Workspaces allow you to maintain multiple instances of state for the same configuration:

terraform workspace new staging
terraform workspace new production
terraform workspace list
terraform workspace select staging

How Workspaces Work

Each workspace has its own state file:

terraform.tfstate.d/
├── staging/
│   └── terraform.tfstate
└── production/
    └── terraform.tfstate

Using Workspaces in Configuration

Access the current workspace name with terraform.workspace:

resource "aws_instance" "web" {
  ami           = var.ami_id
  instance_type = terraform.workspace == "production" ? "t3.large" : "t3.micro"

  tags = {
    Environment = terraform.workspace
  }
}

Workspace Commands

Command	Purpose
terraform workspace list	List all workspaces
terraform workspace new <name>	Create a new workspace
terraform workspace select <name>	Switch to a workspace
terraform workspace delete <name>	Delete a workspace
terraform workspace show	Show the current workspace

---

When to Use Workspaces