How to Configure GitHub Environments with Terraform

GitHub Environments provide deployment protection rules and secrets for your CI/CD workflows. Managing them with Terraform ensures consistency and enables infrastructure-as-code practices for your deployment pipelines.

Why Use Terraform for GitHub Environments?

Consistency: Define environments once, apply everywhere.

Version Control: Track environment configuration changes over time.

Automation: Create and update environments as part of your infrastructure pipeline.

Scalability: Manage multiple repositories and environments efficiently.

Key Benefits

• Protection Rules: Configure required reviewers and wait timers
• Environment Secrets: Manage deployment credentials securely
• Branching Policies: Control which branches can deploy
• Audit Trail: Track all configuration changes in git

Example Configuration

Using the GitHub provider for Terraform, you can define environments declaratively:

resource "github_repository_environment" "production" {
  repository  = "my-repo"
  environment = "production"
  
  deployment_branch_policy {
    protected_branches     = true
    custom_branch_policies = false
  }
}

Best Practices

1. Separate Environments: Use distinct environments for dev, staging, and production
2. Protection Rules: Require reviews for production deployments
3. Secret Management: Store sensitive values in environment secrets
4. Template Approach: Create reusable modules for environment configuration

This approach integrates seamlessly with GitHub Actions and provides a solid foundation for secure, automated deployments.

Read the full article on Medium: How to configure GitHub Environments with Terraform