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Posted on • Originally published at controlmonkey.io

GCP Compute Engine Terraform 2025: Create a VM Instance

#terraform #gcp #cloud #sre

By Daniel Alfasi — Backend Developer & AI Researcher

When teams need to spin up infrastructure quickly, nothing beats GCP Compute Engine with Terraform for consistent, declarative deployments.

By combining Terraform’s state management with Google’s robust APIs, you can treat every Terraform GCP instance like code — repeatable in any environment.

Whether you’re creating a small sandbox or a production-ready cluster, learning how to create a Compute Engine VM with Terraform pays off immediately.

👉 For a broader view on managing Terraform with Google Cloud, check out the GCP Terraform Provider Best Practices Guide.

⚙️ Basic Compute Engine Terraform Configuration

The snippet below shows the absolute minimum needed to define a Terraform GCP instance.

Once applied, Terraform talks to the Google Cloud API and delivers a ready-to-use Terraform VM in GCP — no console clicks required.

# main.tf — minimal GCP Compute Engine Terraform example

resource "google_compute_instance" "demo" {
  name         = "demo-vm"
  machine_type = "e2-small"
  zone         = "us-central1-a"

  boot_disk {
    initialize_params {
      image = "debian-cloud/debian-12"
    }
  }

  network_interface {
    network       = "default"
    access_config {}
  }
}
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Before running terraform apply, initialize your environment:

terraform init
terraform plan
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Once you apply, you’ll have compute resources that can be shared, versioned, audited, and destroyed just as easily.

🧩 Configuring Machine Types, Zones, and Metadata

Scaling a Terraform VM in GCP is as simple as changing the machine_type:

machine_type = "e2-medium"  # or "c3-standard-8" for more power
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Need to burst into another region?

Just update the zone, and Terraform builds a twin — perfectly codified and drift-free.

Teams can safely experiment, knowing that peer reviews catch issues before production resources are created.

If you store state in Cloud Storage with a backend block, teammates can collaborate safely and avoid conflicting writes.

Use a service account with:

roles/compute.admin
roles/storage.objectViewer
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for least-privilege security.

For more secure and automated access, read the GCP Terraform Authentication Guide and the GCP PAM Terraform Guide.

🧠 Provisioning Startup Scripts and SSH in Terraform GCP Instances

A common pattern when authoring Terraform VM blueprints is attaching a startup script to install packages, configure logging, or register nodes in CI.

You can keep the script inline or reference an external file:

metadata_startup_script = file("scripts/startup.sh")
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Once you add startup scripts, you’ll realize how much manual setup disappears.

That’s when the repeatability of GCP Compute Engine with Terraform really clicks.

🏁 Conclusion: Why Standardize on GCP Compute Engine Terraform

With just ~20 lines of code, you’ve gone from nothing to a reproducible VM — all from your terminal.

💡 Ready for production?

Check out ControlMonkey’s GCP Compute Module for:

  • Built-in firewall rules
  • SSH key management
  • Monitoring hooks
  • Best-practice defaults

Clone it and start shipping infrastructure today!

💬 Questions or feedback? Drop a comment below or book a quick intro call.

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