Terraform Basics

A plugin distributed and versioned separately from Terraform core; it implements the resource types and data sources for a platform.

terraform init installs declared providers into the .terraform directory and records selections in the lock file.

The terraform {} block. required_providers is nested inside terraform {}.

source (the registry address, e.g. hashicorp/aws) and version (a version constraint).

The provider's registry source address, e.g. hashicorp/aws, telling Terraform where to fetch the provider.

A version constraint that limits which provider versions Terraform may select, e.g. ~> 5.0.