Day 8: Terraform Finally Makes Sense (Loops, Count, For_Each & Dependencies)

Today was one of those days where everything just clicked.
No stress, no confusion… just straight understanding. Terraform started feeling less like “DevOps theory” and more like something I can actually control confidently.

What I Learned

• I finally understood meta-arguments especially count, for_each, and depends_on.
• Learned how to use count.index to loop through lists.
• Learned how for_each works with sets and how it gives better resource naming.
• Saw why dependencies matter so Terraform doesn’t rush resources in the wrong order.

Honestly, these concepts looked scary from afar, but once I practiced them… they were simple.

What I Built Today

Created two S3 buckets using count

Used a list of names, looped with count.index, and everything created perfectly.

Created two more S3 buckets using for_each

Used a set this time and referenced bucket names using each.value.
Added depends_on just to make sure Terraform behaves.

Displayed bucket names and IDs

Used for-expressions to print out everything cleanly with tf output.

Commands I ran

tf plan
tf apply --auto-approve
tf output

Everything worked without drama.

A Bit of My Code:

resource aws_s3_bucket "bucket5" { 
  count = 2
  bucket = var.bucket_name[count.index]
  tags = var.tags
}

output "s3_bucket_names" {
  value = [for bucket in aws_s3_bucket.bucket1 : bucket.bucket]
}

Today was smooth.
The tasks didn’t overwhelm me at all.
It felt like the previous lessons were preparing me for today, and everything connected naturally.

The more I practice Terraform, the more I feel like:

“Okay… I can actually do this DevOps thing.”

DAY 8 :

Key Lessons from Day 8

• count = great for lists
• for_each = cleaner when you want unique names
• Sets work nicely with for_each
• depends_on prevents Terraform from rushing
• For-expressions make outputs neat and professional