Install Terraform on macOS

This article is for those looking for a detailed and straightforward guide on installing Terraform on macOS.

Terraform is HashiCorp’s infrastructure as a code tool. It lets you define resources and infrastructure in human-readable, declarative configuration files, and manages your infrastructure’s lifecycle. Using Terraform has several advantages over manually managing your infrastructure.

TIP

Architecture Context

Local Terraform CLI is the standard for infrastructure-as-code development and testing. Terraform Cloud or Spacelift provide managed alternatives with remote state, policy enforcement, and team collaboration built in. Local CLI is sufficient for individual workflows, but teams should evaluate remote backends early to avoid state management complexity as infrastructure grows.

IMPORTANT

In this guide, we will consider the case when you already have the Homebrew package manager installed.

To install Homebrew, you can use the command:

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/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

NOTE

This guide walks you through connecting to a server with the iTerm2 terminal emulator on macOS.

We connect the repository with formulas for Homebrew using the command:

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brew tap hashicorp/tap

Run the Terraform installation with the command:

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brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform

Next, you can see the installed version of Terraform using the command:

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terraform -version

Everything is ready to use Terraform.

You can read more about how to configure AWS CLI in my guide Configure AWS CLI.