terraform-docs VS pre-commit-hooks

Documentation is really important, so having a README.md file inside your Terraform repository that explains how to use the automation (including descriptions of variables and outputs) really help in understanding what has been implemented. To easily generate the description of variables and outputs, you can leverage tfdocs.

‍Terraform-docs is a tool that automatically generates documentation from Terraform modules in various output formats, including markdown, JSON, and others. It's particularly useful for maintaining up-to-date documentation of your Terraform modules' inputs, outputs, providers, and resources.

Earlier this year I wrote about the challenges I faced creating a Terraform module. I mentioned then that I was leveraging terraform-docs and GitHub Actions to automate documentation, but a full workflow walkthrough was out of that post's scope.

### Muti-Stage pipeline for windows trigger: - main variables: terraformDocsVersion: '0.16.0' serviceConnectionName: 'Terraform-SPN-DevOps-MagiconionM' keyvaultName: 'pwd9000-core-kv' pool: vmImage: 'windows-latest' stages: - stage: GenerateTerraformDocumentation jobs: - job: Generate_Terraform_Documentation steps: - checkout: self persistCredentials: true # this allows the later scripts to use the system-provided git token to push changes back to the repo ### Link to key vault. - task: AzureKeyVault@1 inputs: azureSubscription: $(serviceConnectionName) #ADO service connection (Service principal) KeyVaultName: $(keyvaultName) SecretsFilter: 'TerraformDocsPAToken' RunAsPreJob: true displayName: Get PAToken from Keyvault ### Install Terraform-Docs. - powershell: | Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/releases/download/v$(terraformDocsVersion)/terraform-docs-v$(terraformDocsVersion)-windows-amd64.zip" -OutFile "terraform-docs.zip" Expand-Archive -Path "terraform-docs.zip" -DestinationPath "$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\terraform-docs" -Force $env:Path += ";$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\terraform-docs" displayName: 'Install terraform-docs' ### Remove all old README.md files and generate new README.md files for each TF module. - powershell: | # Set Modules Root Directory Set-Location "$(Build.SourcesDirectory)\@TF_Modules" # Get all subdirectories (Terraform module directories) $terraformModuleDirs = Get-ChildItem -Path (Get-Location) -Directory # Loop through each directory to cleanup/remove old README files foreach ($dir in $terraformModuleDirs) { # Get all files in the directory $readMeFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path $dir.FullName -Filter 'README.md' # Loop through each file in each terraform module foreach ($file in $readMeFiles) { # Check if README file already exists and remove if ($file) { # Remove the file Remove-Item $file.FullName -Confirm:$false Write-Output "Old file '$($file.Name)' removed from '$($dir.FullName)'" } } #After cleanup create a new README.md file with 'terraform-docs' based on latest TF module code in current folder(terraform module) $tfFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path $dir.FullName -Filter *.tf if ($tfFiles.Count -gt 0) { # Create new README.md file $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\terraform-docs\terraform-docs.exe markdown table $dir.FullName --output-file "README.md" } else { Write-Output "No .tf files found." } } displayName: 'Cleanup and Generate new README for each TF module' ### Commit and push updated README.md files for TF modules. - powershell: | git config --local user.email "[email protected]" git config --local user.name "Terraform Docs" git add *.md git commit -m "Update README.md for each TF module" git push origin HEAD:$(Build.SourceBranchName) displayName: 'Commit and Push updated README.md files for TF modules' env: SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN: $(TerraformDocsPAToken)

I'm going to have to figure out how to run terraform-docs.io against each module. I have zero terraform experience.

Terraform-docs: This tool generates documentation for your Terraform modules in various formats, such as Markdown, HTML, and JSON. Terraform-docs parses your Terraform code and extracts documentation from comments, variable and output descriptions, and input/output examples. The tool then generates a table of contents with links to the relevant documentation for each module, which makes it easy to understand the purpose and usage of each module.

Terraform docs

I have been using https://terraform-docs.io to generate documentation of my terraform modules. However creating nested objects with optionals makes the documentation rather ugly and hard to read. See gh issue which also describes this type of issue: https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs/issues/656

I am looking for a way to automate doc creation and updates for ansible roles. I recently discovered terraform-docs and I am curious if there is something similar for ansible.

terraform-docs: https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs

Do you have other Terraform-related open-source tools that you recommend? Please go ahead and add in the comments!

# See https://pre-commit.com for more information # See https://pre-commit.com/hooks.html for more hooks repos: - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks rev: v3.2.0 hooks: - id: trailing-whitespace - id: end-of-file-fixer - id: check-yaml - id: check-toml - id: check-added-large-files - repo: local hooks: - id: tox lint name: tox-validation entry: pdm run tox -e test,lint language: system files: ^src\/.+py$|pyproject.toml|^tests\/.+py$ types_or: [python, toml] pass_filenames: false - id: tox docs name: tox-docs language: system entry: pdm run tox -e docs types_or: [python, rst, toml] files: ^src\/.+py$|pyproject.toml|^docs\/ pass_filenames: false - repo: https://github.com/pdm-project/pdm rev: 2.10.4 # a PDM release exposing the hook hooks: - id: pdm-lock-check - repo: https://github.com/jumanjihouse/pre-commit-hooks rev: 3.0.0 hooks: - id: markdownlint

repos: - repo: https://github.com/ambv/black rev: 23.3.0 hooks: - id: black args: [--config=./pyproject.toml] language_version: python3.11 - repo: https://github.com/pycqa/flake8 rev: 6.0.0 hooks: - id: flake8 args: [--config=./tox.ini] language_version: python3.11 - repo: https://github.com/pycqa/isort rev: 5.12.0 hooks: - id: isort args: ["--profile", "black", "--filter-files"] language_version: python3.11 - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks rev: v4.4.0 hooks: - id: requirements-txt-fixer language_version: python3.11 - id: debug-statements - id: detect-aws-credentials - id: detect-private-key

repos: - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks rev: hooks: - id: check-json

$ pre-commit run --all-files [INFO] Initializing environment for https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks. [INFO] Initializing environment for https://github.com/psf/black. [INFO] Installing environment for https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks. [INFO] Once installed this environment will be reused. [INFO] This may take a few minutes... [INFO] Installing environment for https://github.com/psf/black. [INFO] Once installed this environment will be reused. [INFO] This may take a few minutes... Check Yaml...............................................................Passed Fix End of Files.........................................................Passed Trim Trailing Whitespace.................................................Failed - hook id: trailing-whitespace - exit code: 1 Files were modified by this hook. Additional output: Fixing sample.py black....................................................................Passed

The excellent pre-commit framework (https://pre-commit.com/) has a hook for that in its official hook collection: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks#detect-aws-cr...

exclude: .*migrations\/.* repos: - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks ... - repo: https://github.com/psf/black rev: 22.12.0 hooks: - id: black language_version: python3.9

This is what we use — https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks/blob/main/pre_commit_hooks/detect_private_key.py

Personally I do also add "end-of-file-fixer" and "trailing-whitespace" from the "https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks" repo. That cleans up and normalizes some files as well.

repos: - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks rev: v3.3.0 hooks: - id: check-yaml args: ["--allow-multiple-documents"] - repo: local hooks: - id: forbidden-files name: forbidden files entry: found copier update rejection files; review them and remove them language: fail files: "\\.rej$" - id: black name: black entry: poetry run black language: system types: [python] - id: flake8 name: flake8 entry: poetry run flake8 language: system types: [python] - id: isort name: isort entry: poetry run isort --settings-path=. language: system types: [python] - id: pyupgrade name: pyupgrade entry: poetry run pyupgrade language: system types: [python] args: [--py310-plus] - id: mypy name: mypy description: Check python types. entry: poetry run mypy language: system types: [python]

repos: - repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks rev: v4.1.0 hooks: - id: no-commit-to-branch