validate

Usage

terraform validate command validates the syntax and internal consistency of Terraform configuration files in a directory. It does not access remote services. This command is useful for verifying reusable modules and attribute names and value types. It can be used locally or as a test step in a CI system.

Different use cases of terraform validate command are:

• Verifying the syntax and format of Terraform configuration files.
  • Example: Running terraform validate on a directory containing Terraform files to ensure they are written correctly and are free from syntax errors.
• Checking the validity of attribute values, providers, and modules.
  • Example: Running terraform validate on a module to ensure that all required input variables have been defined and that their types match the module's expectations.
• Using it as a test step in a CI/CD pipeline to check for configuration errors before deploying infrastructure.
  • Example: Running terraform validate as part of a Jenkins pipeline to ensure that Terraform configurations are valid and free from errors before being deployed to production.

Options

-json

Produce output in a machine-readable JSON format, suitable for use in text editor integrations and other automated systems. Always disables color.

-no-color

If specified, output won't contain any color.

Result

validation success

Example of what the JSON output looks like when running terraform validate -json:

{
  "valid": true,
  "error_count": 0,
  "warning_count": 0,
  "diagnostics": [],
  "format_version": "1.0"
}

validation failed

Here is an example of a complete sample output in JSON format when you run the terraform validate command on an invalid Terraform configuration:

{
  "valid": false,
  "error_count": 2,
  "warning_count": 0,
  "diagnostics": [
    {
      "severity": "error",
      "summary": "Missing required argument",
      "detail": "The argument \\"region\\" is required, but no definition was found.",
      "range": {
        "filename": "main.tf",
        "start": {
          "line": 1,
          "column": 1,
          "byte": 0
        },
        "end": {
          "line": 1,
          "column": 16,
          "byte": 15
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "severity": "error",
      "summary": "Unsupported argument",
      "detail": "An argument named \\"access_key\\" is not expected here.",
      "range": {
        "filename": "main.tf",
        "start": {
          "line": 2,
          "column": 3,
          "byte": 18
        },
        "end": {
          "line": 2,
          "column": 22,
          "byte": 37
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "format_version": "1.0"
}

In this example, the valid property indicates that the configuration is not valid, and the error_count property indicates that there are two errors detected by the terraform validate command. The warning_count property indicates that there are no warnings, and the diagnostics property contains an array of diagnostic messages describing the errors