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Terraform and Configuration Governance

StatiBeat supports page-scoped Terraform workflows for moving operational configuration into code.

Terraform workspace in the live demo

Terraform export in the live demo

The Terraform workspace​

Inside page admin, the Terraform workspace is split into:

  • Setup
  • Export

Use Setup when you need:

  • the page or custom-domain URL
  • provider input values
  • a dedicated terraform-key
  • example provider configuration

Use Export when you need:

  • Terraform generated from existing live configuration
  • a bootstrap path from manual setup to config-as-code
  • a manifest of what is or is not included in the export

Terraform provider vs export​

These are related but different:

  • the Terraform provider manages supported configuration directly
  • the export flow generates Terraform artifacts from configuration that already exists

If you are starting from scratch, provider-first may be cleaner.

If you already built the page manually, export is often the fastest bridge into code-based governance.

What is worth governing through Terraform​

Good Terraform candidates include:

  • hierarchy
  • status definitions
  • preset messages
  • Beats and Beat Groups
  • custom views and feeds
  • selected site settings
  • RBAC roles and mappings where supported

Operational incident handling is usually not the right target for Terraform.

That also applies to Post-Incident Reports: they are operational follow-up records tied to incident history, so v1 excludes them from Terraform management and Terraform export content.

Current examples of configuration that fit Terraform well include:

  • protected custom-view access mode, allowlists, prompt text, and session TTL
  • hosted embed settings such as badge enablement, badge label, and widget enablement
  • bounded hosted-page extensibility settings such as custom CSS, approved external script URLs, and locale defaults

Operational workflows still stay outside Terraform. That includes:

  • subscriber CSV import and export
  • bulk subscriber hygiene actions such as suppress, bounce, complaint, or quarantine
  • page and delivery analytics dashboards
  • one-time viewer sign-in or magic-link consumption

Lockdown and drift control​

Terraform lockdown is how you prevent manual changes in selected feature groups after you move to config as code.

Use it only after:

  1. export or import is complete
  2. Terraform plans are clean
  3. the team agrees which settings should be code-owned

That keeps governance strict without locking the UI prematurely.

MCP follows the same separation of concerns:

  • use Terraform for durable configuration ownership
  • use MCP for read-only operational context and narrowly scoped incident or maintenance workflows
  • keep analytics, subscriber migration, and audience-unlock flows out of Terraform even if they matter operationally