OpenTofu Skill

Infrastructure-as-code reference for OpenTofu configurations, state management, and provider patterns.

OpenTofu is the open-source fork of Terraform, maintained by the Linux Foundation. Commands and syntax are nearly identical to Terraform.

Quick Reference

# Core workflow
tofu init              # Initialize, download providers
tofu validate          # Syntax validation
tofu fmt -recursive    # Format HCL files
tofu plan              # Preview changes
tofu apply             # Apply changes

# Inspection
tofu state list                    # List resources in state
tofu state show <resource>         # Show resource details
tofu graph | dot -Tsvg > graph.svg # Dependency graph

# Debug
TF_LOG=DEBUG tofu plan 2>debug.log

Core Workflow

init → validate → fmt → plan → apply

1. init: Download providers, initialize backend
2. validate: Check syntax and configuration validity
3. fmt: Ensure consistent formatting
4. plan: Preview what will change (review carefully)
5. apply: Execute changes

Terraform Migration

OpenTofu is a drop-in replacement for Terraform:

# Replace terraform with tofu in commands
terraform init  →  tofu init
terraform plan  →  tofu plan
terraform apply →  tofu apply

# State files are compatible
# Provider configurations work the same
# Most modules work without changes

Key differences:

• Different binary name (tofu vs terraform)
• Some newer Terraform features may not be available yet
• Provider registry defaults differ (can be configured)

Reference Files

Load on-demand based on task:

Validation Checklist

Before tofu apply:

• tofu init completed successfully
• tofu validate passes
• tofu fmt applied
• tofu plan reviewed (check destroy/replace operations)
• Backend configured correctly (for team environments)
• State locking enabled (if remote backend)
• Sensitive variables marked sensitive = true
• Provider versions pinned
• No secrets in version control
• Blast radius assessed (what could break?)

Variable Precedence

(highest to lowest)

1. -var flag: tofu apply -var="name=value"
2. -var-file flag: tofu apply -var-file=prod.tfvars
3. *.auto.tfvars files (alphabetically)
4. terraform.tfvars file
5. TFVAR* environment variables
6. Variable defaults in variables.tf

Provider Configuration

# versions.tf
terraform {
  required_version = ">= 1.6.0"  # OpenTofu version

  required_providers {
    proxmox = {
      source  = "Telmate/proxmox"
      version = "~> 3.0"
    }
  }
}