Terraform Cloud and Workspaces: Remote Execution, Policy Enforcement, and Team Workflows
Terraform Cloud transforms Terraform from a CLI tool that engineers run on their laptops into a collaborative platform with remote state, remote execution, policy enforcement, and audit trails. Running terraform apply locally works for a solo engineer, but breaks down with teams - who ran the last apply, what version of the code was used, were the right variables set, did anyone review the plan? Terraform Cloud solves these problems with a centralized execution environment.
Workspaces in Terraform Cloud map to environments or components. A typical structure uses separate workspaces for each environment (app-production, app-staging, app-development) sharing the same Terraform code but with different variable values. VCS-driven workspaces automatically trigger plans when code is pushed to a connected Git branch - push to main triggers the production workspace, push to develop triggers staging. Run triggers chain workspaces together: when the networking workspace applies successfully, it triggers the compute workspace that depends on it.
Policy enforcement with Sentinel (or OPA for the free tier) is the governance layer that distinguishes Terraform Cloud from running the CLI with a remote backend. Policies check plans before apply - reject any plan that creates public S3 buckets, require specific tags on all resources, limit instance sizes in non-production environments, and mandate encryption on all storage. The approval workflow adds human review: plans require approval from designated team members before apply, with the full plan output visible in the UI. For teams, this creates a self-service infrastructure workflow where developers can deploy within guardrails without needing infrastructure team involvement for every change.
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