Providers and Terraform Cloud Capabilities
This chapter explains the role of providers and version constraints in reproducible runs, and the collaboration and governance features that Terraform Cloud and Enterprise add on top of the open-source CLI.
Providers and versioning
A provider is a plugin that lets Terraform interact with a specific API, exposing that platform's resource and data source types. Declaring providers and constraining their versions in required_providers, together with the dependency lock file, keeps runs reproducible and guards against unexpected breaking changes in newer releases.
Terraform Cloud and Enterprise
Terraform Cloud and Enterprise add remote execution of plans and applies, secure shared remote state, VCS-driven workflows, private module registries, policy enforcement, and team-based access controls. These features support collaboration and governance beyond what running Terraform from a single laptop provides, while still using the same HCL and state model.