Terraform doesn't ask to input variables interactively?

[lawrencepit]

Was following the Getting Started at http://www.terraform.io/intro/getting-started/variables.html:

UI Input: If you execute terraform plan or apply without doing anything, Terraform will ask you to input the variables interactively.

Got this instead:

$ terraform plan
There are warnings and/or errors related to your configuration. Please
fix these before continuing.

Errors:

  * 2 error(s) occurred:

* Required variable not set: secret_key
* Required variable not set: access_key

The other methods mentioned on that Getting Started page do seem to work.

[stack72]

@lawrencepit I believe this is a mistake in the docs. This was added and then reverted. Right now, I believe that input defaults to false so it won't ask for them.

I usually use a tfvars file to load these types of variables. My tfvars file is then globally ignored by my git config

[lawrencepit]

I later noticed the explicit -input=true in the command: apply doc, so I guess a mistake in the docs indeed.

PS. personally I don't like checking in files containing secrets such as aws keys/secrets. I believe Vault is the better solution for that ;-)

[stack72]

@phinze Looks like there is a small mistake in the getting started docs:

**UI Input:** If you execute `terraform plan` or apply without doing
anything, Terraform will ask you to input the variables interactively.
These variables are not saved, but provides a nice user experience for
getting started with Terraform.

This isn't actually the case. By default, input is set to false. I suggest we change to something like

**UI Input:** By default, Terraform will *not* ask you to interactively input the variables if you execute `terraform plan` or apply without doing
anything. 

Thoughts?

[phinze]

Hm. This is confusing!

The relevant code is here, which says that unset variables should prompt for input iff no variables are specified in other ways (via tfvars or flags).

So, important question: was there a terraform.tfvars in the dir when the unexpected lack of prompt happened?

[lawrencepit]

I followed the Getting Started page for Input Variables. The first step was Create another file variables.tf. I have no terraform.tfvars file.

I think what users would expect is that if a var is not defined via the command line, and then not defined in terraform.tfvars and finally not defined as a TF_VAR_* environment variable, then it falls back to UI input. Although tbh I'd prefer if by default it did not fall back to UI input (because I'd prefer automation without providing a -input=false each time). If you want the UI input fallback you'd have to be explicit by providing -input=true via the command line. Which btw also doesn't seem to work for me:

$ terraform plan -input=true
There are warnings and/or errors related to your configuration. Please
fix these before continuing.

Errors:

  * 1 error(s) occurred:

* Required variable not set: foo

See also http://www.terraform.io/docs/commands/plan.html#_input_true

[aviflax]

New Terraform user here, and I’ve also been confused by the discrepancy between the Getting Started guide and the current behavior of the program. So I agree that either the behavior should be changed to match the docs, or the docs should be changed to match the behavior.

---

I’m also seeing the same problem as @lawrencepit wherein the -input flag does’t seem to work at all:

$ terraform plan -input=true
There are warnings and/or errors related to your configuration. Please
fix these before continuing.

Errors:

  * 3 error(s) occurred:

* Required variable not set: environment
* Required variable not set: access_key
* Required variable not set: secret_key

So that should probably be fixed as well.

[phinze]

I believe this should be fixed in Terraform 0.6.7 by #3843 and #4017, which cause the input prompt behavior to be consistent across commands. Thanks to @jen20 for the fixes there!

[ghost]

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