Technologies · Terraform
Terraform consulting for startups
We write, restructure, and rescue Terraform: module architecture, remote state done safely, drift eliminated, and plan-on-PR wired into CI. Everything we build for clients ships as Terraform in their repos — infrastructure you can read, review, and rebuild, instead of console archaeology.
Reference architecture
How we build with Terraform
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Scope
What our Terraform consulting covers
- Terraform audits: state health, module structure, version pinning, secret hygiene
- Importing console-built ('ClickOps') infrastructure into code without downtime
- Module architecture that scales: environments as thin compositions of versioned modules
- CI integration: fmt, validate, plan-on-PR with cost estimates, gated applies
- Rescues of Terraform someone else wrote — including the tangled kind
System design
How Terraform scales with your team
- 1
Small states over one mega-state: split by environment and domain so a plan takes seconds and a mistake has a blast radius, not a blast zone
- 2
Modules are the API: product teams compose versioned modules; only the platform layer writes raw resources
- 3
Drift dies in CI: scheduled plan runs detect console changes within hours, and the answer to 'quick console fix' is a quick PR instead
- 4
State is sacred: remote backend with locking, encryption, and restricted access — state files contain secrets and deserve production-grade care
In practice
What a typical engagement looks like
A startup with 200+ console-built AWS resources and zero code gets everything imported into Terraform over three weeks — modules per domain, remote state with locking, plan-on-PR in GitHub Actions — with no downtime. Six months of 'what is this security group for?' becomes a git blame away.
Illustrative engagement — representative of typical work at typical scale, not a specific client. See a full sample audit deliverable here.
Terraform work is covered by the Fractional DevOps retainer ($2,900/mo) and scoped fixed-price projects — start with the guaranteed $1,900 audit if you want findings before commitments.
Questions
Terraform, straight answers
Can you clean up Terraform someone else wrote?
Yes — it's one of our most requested jobs. The usual finds: one giant state file, copy-pasted environments, unpinned providers, and secrets in plaintext. We restructure incrementally with `terraform state mv` and imports, so the cleanup never requires destroying and recreating live infrastructure.
Terraform, OpenTofu, or Pulumi?
Terraform (or its drop-in fork OpenTofu) remains the ecosystem default with the deepest provider coverage and the most engineers who can read it — that hiring liquidity matters for a startup. Pulumi is a fine tool if your team strongly prefers real programming languages, but we default to Terraform/OpenTofu unless you have a specific reason.
Related technologies
Need senior Terraform help without the hire?
A 15-minute call is enough to tell you exactly what we'd do and what it costs. No pitch deck, no pressure.