> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.chronosphere.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Chronosphere Terraform provider

[Terraform](https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/docs) is an open source,
infrastructure-as-code software tool that provides a consistent workflow for managing
hundreds of cloud services as a series of configuration files. Terraform relies on
plugins called *providers* to interact with cloud providers, SaaS providers, and
other APIs, including Chronosphere Observability Platform.

## Getting started

To use the Chronosphere Terraform provider, you must install Terraform, and then you
can install the provider and ensure you're authenticated for its use. For
information, see
[Install the Chronosphere Terraform provider](/tooling/infrastructure/terraform/install).

After installing the provider, see the
[documentation](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/chronosphereio/chronosphere/latest/docs)
in the Terraform registry to understand the schema and resource definitions.

## Prevent changes to managed resources

When you use Terraform to manage service account, notifier, dashboard, monitor, or
drop rules resources, Terraform overrides any changes to these resources that users
try to make elsewhere. To avoid confusion and configuration conflicts, Observability
Platform prevents users from modifying such resources outside of Terraform.

When you attempt to modify a Terraform-managed resource in Observability Platform,
the app displays a banner that explains the required use of Terraform. It also
prevents you from saving any attempted changes from the user interface.

Observability Platform also prevents any attempts to modify these resources with
[Chronoctl](/tooling/chronoctl) or the Chronosphere API.

## Validate plans with dry runs

<Note>
  When you run `terraform plan` to generate an execution plan, Chronosphere automatically
  tests configurations that include notification policies by submitting them as dry runs.
  For details, see the
  [Terraform provider](/tooling/infrastructure/terraform#validate-plans-with-dry-runs)
  documentation.
</Note>

| Terraform provider version | Supported types for dry-run validations                          |
| -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 0.34 or later              | All resources                                                    |
| 0.33                       | All resources except notifiers                                   |
| 0.29 through 0.32          | Monitors, mapping rules, rollup rules, and notification policies |
| 0.28 and earlier           | Monitors                                                         |

<Note>
  Dry runs can't validate resources or configurations that rely on uniqueness or the
  existence of other objects, because those traits can change during the dry run or
  before Terraform applies the configuration. For example, a dry run can't validate
  whether referencing another entity's ID is valid because that ID's existence isn't
  guaranteed.

  Dry runs can therefore provide only a best-effort attempt to confirm a resource's
  validity.
</Note>

### Disable dry run validation

To prevent the dry-run validation step, set the `CHRONOSPHERE_DRY_RUN_VALIDATION_DISABLED`
environment variable to `1` when running `terraform plan`:

```shell theme={null}
CHRONOSPHERE_DRY_RUN_VALIDATION_DISABLED=1 terraform plan
```

## Troubleshooting

Use the following information to help troubleshoot common issues with the Chronosphere Terraform provider.

### Unable to remove resources referenced elsewhere in a manifest

By design, Terraform prevents providers from defining the order of resources managed
by the provider, or the order of actions it takes on them. This is a
[known limitation of Terraform](https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/issues/31309#issuecomment-1164908203)
on all Terraform providers, including the Chronosphere Terraform provider.

When you remove a resources from a Terraform manifest or make modifications that
require the resource to be recreated, Terraform attempts to remove the resource
before updating its references. This behavior can lead to errors, including timeouts
that don't report an error message.

In some affected resources, you can set the
[`create_before_destroy` lifecycle meta-argument](https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/language/meta-arguments/lifecycle)
to mitigate the issue by forcing Terraform to create a new resource before destroying
the old resource. However, resources that require a unique field (such as the
Chronosphere Terraform provider's `name` field) that also enforce `ForceNew` on the
resource are incompatible with this meta-argument. This includes many Chronosphere
Terraform provider resources.

Because of this behavior, you might need to remove references to a resource you
intend to destroy. After that point, Terraform should let you remove the referenced
resources.